Some lesser known and unknown makers

I know there's already a razor club for this, but thought I'd start a post here with some interesting razors I have. I've been talking with Zak a lot about some of these; some are known but uncommon, some have stumped us so far. Some came from a recent purchase one degree away from Robert Doyle, and a couple have Lummus markings on them.

First up: D. Klauberg New York. I believe it is this family, a Daniel Klauberg (https://sites.google.com/site/thekla...ily-in-america).

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Some history on Daniel Klauberg, who started in 1819 in New York, the origins of the firm C. Klauberg. From the article, apparently he made goods starting in 1819, moved to a new building in 1824, and was importing sheffield blanks from 1829:

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Further interesting, an article in which Daniel in 1824 talks about making a few razors and other goods from a new American steel to test it out. From what I can tell he had been using English steel up until this time (and probably after):

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Next up a Boston razor, Wells W. Aye, 304 Washington St.

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In my very limited search, nothing so far on this one, but it should be fairly straightforward to trace. Next up, a Richard Reese. Very little information on this one. Zak is currently looking into a number of different American Reeses who were blacksmiths. Not sure if American or English.

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And an early stubtail marked with a hatchet (I'm not sure if it's a hatchet or pipe but it looks more like the former to me) and the number 3. I haven't done an exhaustive search of the early maker marks, but so far nothing.

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Here are some common pipe marks for reference: Attachment 122482

Feel free to post more pictures of rare or unknown makers marks, I'm interested. And if anyone has any info on these, chime in. More to come...

Love the washer on the last pic, looks like the metal in it is quite soft.

Im thinking the Richard Reese is an English razor, found a snipet from a book from the 1800's "A particularly powerful temperance revival occurred at Tredegar in 1859, when an itinerant cutler, Richard Reese, gave a series of temperance lectures. Within a few weeks, nearly 7,000 people signed the pledge".

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Originally Posted by Martin103

Im thinking the Richard Reese is an English razor, found a snipet from a book from the 1800's "A particularly powerful temperance revival occurred at Tredegar in 1859, when an itinerant cutler, Richard Reese, gave a series of temperance lectures. Within a few weeks, nearly 7,000 people signed the pledge".

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How do you do that...

edit: nvm, found the same on google books. I was thinking you just grabbed a book off the shelf...

A little more info: from the British Workman Sunday, January 01, 1860

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Another book article on Richard Reese aka "Cheap John"

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Damn good work there, Martin! I'd put down money on the temperance guy being the original seller of that Reese razor.

The second quote, though, is a bit misleading. Cheap John seems to have been slang for anyone who sold inferior quality goods for cheap, and while the first part of the quote makes it sound like it's about the same guy, the rest (IMHO), makes it clear that Eliza Cook is referring to the entire class of merchants, not the temperance movement cutler. The entire book the quote is from is a collection of Cook's writings on all sorts of subjects, and that one seems to have been essentially "buy cheap and you'll get what you paid for!"


As for #3 razor... I got nothing. Possibly not Sheffield?

With regard to the Richard Reese razor, it could well be the fellow Martin has alluded to. A Welshman, his name often spelled 'Rees', he was the 'Cheap John' or 'Cheap Jack' who became famous in Tredegar - not only for promoting his own goods as 'cheap' but better than other cheap goods, but for promoting temperance and then drinking on the sly.

There was an iron/steel industry in the area - ironstone was conveyed there, there were puddling furnaces, a water-powered blast furnace and even a Bessemer furnace. From a history of the area:

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The late 1850s saw a lot of poverty in the area - this is how 'Cheap John' aka 'Cheap Jack' Richard Reese came to fame, touting his slogan 'Look after your No. 1' in 1859. In the early 1860s things hadn't improved much, there are mass emigrations to America, and Richard Reese is no longer mentioned. Interestingly, there are a number of individuals of that name who wound up in the USA, one of such is Richard W Reece, born around 1831. He, however, turned into a farmer.

There really is not much evidence that Reece was a cutler in the proper sense of the word - he sold many types of article, among which one line was cutlery. It could well be that all he did was pay for his name to be stamped on such articles.

Regarding the early stub-tail razor, the makers mark is most definitely not a 'pipe' mark, unlike those on the accompanying diagram that I collected together last year from various sources, mostly from a 1919 reference manual. The link includes the key that identifies the pipe marks - it's not much use without it!

It is quite clearly a battle-axe/hatchet., similar to that found on plate-ware made by J Rodgers & Sons in 1822:

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Could be a '3' under it, could equally well be a 'z' or some other, possibly astrological, hieroglyph. Doesn't look very english to me, for some reason - possibly french.

Regards,
Neil

I dont know why but somehow in my mind the last razor with the battle axe and number 3 was English. Thanks to Mr. Miller pointing out that it might be french, so i went searching. I did find a cutler in the "Thiers" region of France that did use a mark "La Hache d'Arme" ( battle axe), the name is registered to Gilbert Malaret.
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The mark was registered in 1810 in Thiers France, but somehow i think the razor could possibly be older, the registration office of Thiers for cutlery marks only goes back to 1809. It would be interesting to see pictures of the entire razor for sure.

It is somewhat very difficult to identify a mark like this one, without a name, unless it was made by a famous maker. In France, Thiers is a very well popular area for cutlery but there are others as well, an those are even harder to find a maker , Chatellerault was another area popular with cutlery but finding the original maker from a mark can be almost impossible, like on the picture bellow of makers from that region.

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Originally Posted by Martin103

It would be interesting to see pictures of the entire razor for sure.

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Here's the rest: http://straightrazorpalace.com/custo...pic-heavy.html

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

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Originally Posted by eod7

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

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Got some pictures?


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

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

http://i.imgur.com/CnTo3mC.jpg

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)

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Originally Posted by Voidmonster

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

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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).

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

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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.