Thread: Three Curiosities

I like to get oddball razors when I have the chance to do so for cheap. This is a pretty good batch!

We'll start at the bottom. It's a Parker 'Improved Eagle Razor'. They've been thrashed to death on the forum in the past, but I always wanted to get one and see if I could hone it. They have a bad habit of selling for way too much money for something I expect to be unusable, but I was able to nab this one on the cheap.

It's poorly balanced but solidly made -- all except for that whole 'usable razor' part. The blade is just badly designed for actual honing. The factory bevel was set with about half the grit of my DMT 1k and done at an angle nowhere remotely close to a razor edge. I tried honing this last night after the end of a long, long trip and I was just too tired to finish. The bevel it developed is ugly. It remains to be seen if it's functional. I didn't take more pictures of it.

Next up is this interesting little guy.




Turn that little collar on the tang and then the blade comes out.



It cost me little, and the design was interesting enough to just grab it.

Finally, there's this oddball.




The Curve Cut, L. S. Morgan, Patented.

That's Lingue S. Morgan, of Kendall Kansas. Patented 1905.



You can see the full patent here.

Unfortunately, it looks like part of the spine got ground off this one. I haven't tried to put it on a hone yet, but the bevel it has is tiny and there's no obvious wear on the spine, but the shape is so odd, and there's so much corrosion, it's hard to tell. No one else even bid on this, probably because it looked home-made and kind of poor.

The scales are aluminum and actually very well balanced. The only real question is going to be if it's in any shape to be honed. If the geometry is too messed up, I'll try making a brass spine to fix the angle.

Very unique, thank you for sharing them.

I too enjoy unique razors. Thank you for the pictures. Let us know how you progress with the cleaning and honing.

Randy

I love that French frameback

Originally Posted by ScienceGuy

I love that French frameback

Innit neat? I'm pretty sure I can get it cleaned up a bit nicer than it is, but it's going to be a pain to emulate the French collarless pinning method. I might need to get a spare peening hammer and drill out a receiver to round off the brass stock.

The Morgan, while cool, is the only one that doesn't look very functional as a straight. They are all very cool, nice finds! I really like the frameback...but I'm a sucker for framebacks.

I noticed on the bay some one is selling a full set of those Parkers with the statement they were Japanese made, it is sad as the real Japanese Parkers are really nice razors and have nothing to do with those new ones.
The other blades are interesting though.

Did not parker take over case???

Originally Posted by shooter74743

The Morgan, while cool, is the only one that doesn't look very functional as a straight. They are all very cool, nice finds! I really like the frameback...but I'm a sucker for framebacks.

Looks can be very deceiving! The Morgan razor needs to have a frame added to it because someone ground off the spine. Why? I have no idea, but it's currently a TRUE wedge. No fun. It also has nearly perfect balance and feels great in-hand. I think once I get a functional spine on it again, it will hone up and shave great.

Originally Posted by mainaman

I noticed on the bay some one is selling a full set of those Parkers with the statement they were Japanese made, it is sad as the real Japanese Parkers are really nice razors and have nothing to do with those new ones.
The other blades are interesting though.

The one I've got has JAPAN lightly etched onto the pile side. See pictures below. It's really very nicely made. As a knife, but whoever actually made it had never made straight razors before and only had the barest idea of functionality. In the pictures below you can see that the tang and tail are polished to a mirror shine while the blade is glazed. An attractive design for a knife, but functionally backwards for a razor.

Originally Posted by pixelfixed

Did not parker take over case???

That's all waaaaay to recent history for me to know.

Here are some more pictures of the Parker:







The scales are bone with a brass liner, the decorative plate at the hinge is made from some sort of die-cast material. The end cap is stainless steel and the red wedge appears to be micarta. I can't really emphasize enough that while this looks and feels like a quality product, it is simply poorly designed to be a razor. And should anyone think they'll get ahead by using the scales on a good blade, here's a size comparison of the Parker against a Mab and a 5/8 Clauss.



You can see that the Parker just has weird proportions. Not even the Mab blade would fit into its scales. If you cut 1/5th of the blade off an Engels Leader, you MIGHT get that into them, but the weight difference would make the unbalanced Parker scales even worse. Its grind is about as close as I've seen to a true-wedge this side of a microtome.

You might take that Morgan to the hardware sore with you sans the blade. Would be nice if you could find some tubing that would slip tightly over the worn down spine. Then all you would have to do is cut a straight line down it to put the blade back in. Sorry, just thinking outloud...