I picked up this Joh. Engstrom Medalier frameback from Larry at Whippeddog. I currently own two german solingen razors (DOVO and Keen Kutter) and a sheffield (Hargreaves Smith and Co) so I thought I might try to grab something swedish, why not a frameback! Tried it out yesterday and was rewarded with an excellently smooth shave. I was impressed with how it handled despite the lack of jimps on top of the tang. In fact I found the long flat tang to offer a lot of control especially when used against the grain as I could pinch the flat portion quite effectively for upward strokes.
I have seen another frameback with similar stamping and someone mentioned that due to the "sweden" on the tail the razor could be from 1880-1890? Does anyone else have an idea for the age of this razor?
I'm also curious about the scale material. I've heard of bakelite used for engstrom razors, though at one point I saw mention of whale bone scales (sounds very Swedish to me). I believe the wedge is lead.
I can't decide if I want to polish it up or not. There is a little surface rust on the tang (more on the other side) and I'm not a big patina fan. However I like the faint JE 1874 + arrow etching and don't want to lose that. I might hit up the stampings with jewelers rouge and dremel, and maybe see if a little flitz or hand applied jewelers rouge would be nice enough to etching.
Anyways, thanks for looking! I'm really excited about this shaver! Now if only I could find a chopper...7/8 or 8/8!
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