Three stubs, a rescale and two regrinds. Four razors that need a lot of help.
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Left to right:
- Clark & Hall / Warranted
- Rhodes & Champion
- G•S / Best Steel
- Joseph Elliot
All these came through eBay. I got most of them on different days, but by sheer accident of postal delivery they all showed up today.
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The scales on the Clark & Hall are in bad shape, but I think I can repair them and replace the inlay. I'm guessing this one was made at some point between 1800 and 1820. If I had to make a more precise guess, I'd guess 1815 -/+ 2 years.
The Rhodes & Champion has clearly seen better days, and those modern celluloid scales look absolutely awful on it, as does the hone wear. Fortunately, I have another R&S that's in better shape, but this one is considerably older. It looks late 1700's to me. Like my other Rhodes & Champion, it has a forging defect that's caused a crack in the blade. Didn't stop the other one from shaving though!
My guesses for the G•S blade are, at best, extremely speculative. Maybe George Savage? Maaaaybe 1815ish? It's been reground without doubt, but it's a surprisingly large blade for the time. It was probably a full 8/8 wedge when it was new. Now it's 7/8ish and pretty hollow.
Late 1820's is my guess on the Joseph Elliot. They hopped on the Silver Steel bandwagon something crazy and the lack of any statement of material makes me think earlier than later. Not that early though. The blade has clearly been reground and it's got some rust that might well kill it's ability to shave, but it cost me only a couple of bucks and I didn't have any razors with that style of scales.
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I've wanted a Clark & Hall blade for a long time. The scales are gonna be a huge amount of work to fix, but the blade itself is in pretty good shape, considering.
Ebenezer Rhodes was a fascinating guy. Aside from making razors and serving his year as Master Cutler, he was a poet, a playwright, an actor and a politician. He went broke writing Peak Scenery, and I strongly suspect he is the 'Sheffield Razor Maker' who penned Ten Minutes Admonition, a pamphlet that gleefully disassembled the anti-Jacobin Ten Minutes Caution. According to at least one biography, his partnership with David Champion was rolled up in 1814 because he was never around. Then Champion died in 1818, so that really put the skids on things. By the 1820's Rhodes was making razors with his own stamp E. RHODES.
The G•S is a mystery. I don't have any idea when George Savage started making razors. Nor can I really get a good sense of when this razor was made. The tail seems kind of stubby and the blade kind of primitive. I'd normally fall back on the scales, but in this case I think they may have been replaced when it was reground. It's certainly been repinned -- the indentation from the original collars is visible at the toe. Strangely, it's been repinned (quite well!) in a collarless style. The heel of the blade does poke out just slightly from the bottom. Not visible in this photo, but the blade edge is pretty uneven with a bit of a frown in the middle. The poor old fella is going to have to lose a bit more steel to get ship shape.
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I've been a sucker for Joseph Elliot razors for a long time and I can't even articulate why. I just love the logo, and the first box I saw for them with the embossed sailing ship, though it took months before I ever had an Elliot blade to go with the box. This one is in a style I've seen a few times but never gotten my hands on. The jimps suggest later 1820's. It's a shame about the collars, but I really need to figure out a way of recreating those big domed jobbies anyway. The main reason I picked up this razor was the scales, with the neat lead clamp instead of a wedge.
There you have it. I've got my work cut out for me!
Three stubs, a rescale and two regrinds. Four razors that need a lot of help.
I was watching 3 of those. I love the brass inlay. I love to think about all the history behind razors that old. How many shaves have they seen. How many hands. And to think that the original owners rode on horses and in buggies. I don't know .... It's just amazing to me.
