Thread: Some lesser known and unknown makers

I have a Justus Brenger. They made a lot of cutlery, but very few razors.

Originally Posted by eod7

I have a Justus Brenger. They made a lot of cutlery, but very few razors.

Got some pictures?


Here's another. S.F. Foster, Headquarters. The other side is stamped Montreal.



I did turn up another one, albeit in Henckels scales: Antique SF Foster Headquarters Straight Razor W Box (05/01/2011)

Next up a Boston razor, Wells W. Aye, 304 Washington St. I found a few business at that adress from 1880 to 1915 and nothing about razor maker or cutler etc Are you sure its from Boston?

The opposite side of the tang is etched "BOSTON". I don't know if that's an origin etch or just a word added for other purposes though.

The Wells. W. Aye razor looks to me like its identifying marks were etched on, which sort of suggests it was not an item custom ordered, but a 'stock part' that was locally customized. Probably for a small hardware store or some manner of gentleman's shop. Definitely not manufactured by Wells W. Aye.

I'll dig some genealogy stuff and see if I can turn up anything. It's at least a distinctive name!

I'd post pictures of my findings, but I'm on a computer without any image-editing software (I'm supposed to be writing fiction).

Looks like it was Wells W. Ayer, with a rubbed off 'r'. Ayer was supposedly (according to Shackleford's Blade's Guide to Knives and Their Values) the US agent for Richard Bunting. He certainly does show up in the 1880 census, aged 48, living in Boston and describing himself as the owner of a 'Cutlery Store'. In 1880 he was married to Lizzie and he had three children, a son and two daughters, plus one servant. He was born in New Hampshire.

In 1860 he was living in more or less the same place, but back then described himself as a seller of hardware.

September 1870 is the first advertisement I can find from him, in the Boston Journal, hawking Heinisch's Tailor's, Barber's, & Ladie's shears. That address was 146 Washington Street, and the first ad mentions that the store was formerly ... something else. It looks like 'Saddam's'. I can only find a few ads, and they all mention Heinish's scissors.

By May 1887 he sold his 'large hardware business' to E.E. Wood & Son, a cutlery company from Northampton. The article mentions that Ayer retired on account of his health.

Looks like he died sometime before April of 1889, according to the insurance form (his policy paid out $1,810, of which he'd paid in $933.94).

There's no sign in any of this that Ayer was an agent for Richard Bunting, but it's hardly out of the question.

(Sources are Ancestry.com, Genealogy Bank and Google Books)

Originally Posted by Voidmonster

Looks like it was Wells W. Ayer, with a rubbed off 'r'.

That would explain why I was having some trouble finding information.

Here's another: T. Morgan, probably 1830s. This one's interesting because, although it looks like it has been ground slightly to have a shoulder/stabilizer, the blade face is actually flush with the tang, and that is really just a line scribed in the blade for style (you can kind of see this in the first picture).





Also to get an idea of shape/size, here are all mine from this thread so far:

I had misremembered my two Wade & Butcher 'Old Army Razors' as having that etched on stabilizer. They don't. They're actually ground very, very lightly... But I've got another one, an N.A. Smith, that has exactly the same style etched line.