This may be of some interest...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=apN2fzd02vQ
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This may be of some interest...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=apN2fzd02vQ
Thank you for the video, it’s great to see Naomi San in his workshop creating the pinnacle of strops.
Great video. Thank you.
Thanks for posting. Nice vid, good topic. You might want to experiment with a different color for your text though. It can be very hard to see in places. I did enjoy watching it, though.
Cool video, kind of sad though when he's done the strops are done. Also interesting to see a gentleman of that age sit "indian style".
Where’s the best place to purchase one of these...? Thanks
I have a strop made by Naomi san about 50 years ago. It still is slick and flexible and, except for one nick, looks like the day it was purchased. He certainly is a master of his craft.
It is going to be a real loss when his strops are no longer made.
Yes a frames is where I bought my first, the second one I bought was from a friend and it’s like yours, and it’s signed and dated from the 40, s slick blemish free and beautiful. I use it almost all the time.
The man sure knew how to make a strop, mine will go to the grave with me
So........what the difference between 30k...40k....50 k ...strops ? Other than 10.00 ? Thanks
The higher the number, the thicker the strop and the price goes up accordingly
It's good to see him still at it. Sad it will go with his being unable some day.
I really like his work, needless to say.
Thanks for sharing.
Thanks for sharing, for me the very best strops out there. Bar none.
A little follow-up. I went to see Mr. Naumi today. Just as I was ringing
the doorbell, his daughter rode up on a bicycle. She went inside and checked
upstairs. She returned and said her father was sleeping. Mr. Naumi is in
his nineties and rests more these days. She told me that he is not in bad
health but has decided to retire. He has no more cordovan in stock and is
not taking any orders. I told her that the wet-shaving world respected
his work and were concerned about his health. She bowed deeply and
said that she appreciates this very much.
We have been so very lucky to have his strops. His work has been world class.
Looking around a bit, most are gone.
It seems that only a few sellers seem to have the pricier models and they are really pricey.
Sad nobody was an apprentice who could carry-on.
FME, a pile of old, strange equipment is worthless without the right mind running it.
I am happy to have a few. Great strops!
I think we all knew this day was coming. He had been slowing down the last few years.
The end of an era.
To me, that elevates his strop up with my Neil Miller.
Will only be used on special razors and on special occasions.
Pete <:-}
Funny thing in one of the videos he professed that apprentices are just a pain. I can relate.
I have found few who can satisfy me in my work as well.
They all want to do a bit of easy, glam stuff while having their nose in the phone while being paid 20 bucks an hour...
They slow me to a crawl.
Kanoyamas....
I have a stack of them I have been adding to for years. Need to count those.........
Speaking of apprentices
I was an apprentice mechanic when I left school.
I am pretty comfortable under the hood but the skill that i learned first was how to make a decent cuppa.
There wasn't cell phones back then and i was too oily to touch one anyway.
Most of my mechanical learning was probably when I was a tank driver. The drivers(bilge rats) are responsible for the maintainance of their tank, that's where i learned that in a pinch when you're in the middle of nowhere - Apricot Jam makes a pretty good instant gasket to get out of trouble.
Well, I DID order 2 of these 'pound into submission' canvas strops from A-Frames.
Free ship and arrived from Hawaii in 3 days.
All bedecked in Red Imp and Certifyd. Should be a task for a slow day.
I am of the opinion E&Co's strops were for the American market and came right from Naomi's shop.
Attachment 340514
I guess anything is possible. At some point he might have supplied them. Certainly the Red Imp leathers were not from him. They are nothing like his strops. My set came with true linen and again was not a Naomi piece.
Never said Certifyd strops were all the same. Certainly not ones with Naomi in the logo versus E M MFG Co.
Why has virtually every NOS Kanoyama strop I have seen come in these Red Imp wrappers?
WHO knows or can find anything about EM MFG C0?
WHY did a large pile of pressing plates with lots of hardware, razor makers, barber's supply names including EM MFG Co Certifyd 'Blank Check' plates turn up on an ebay auction many years ago from a seller in Hawaii? A-Frames?
It's not hard for me to think that components were not shipped to Japan to assemble 'Made in USA' strops in custom pressings, materials, hardware, and secondaries to be returned to US markets for distribution and sale.
No. Kanoyama would not have put his name on them. No, not always as good workmanship/ materials involved.
Simple contract labor. Would have made him lots of income back in the day.
I can imagine way too many 'Red Imp' wrappers being supplied and thus being used even up to the end of Kanoyama production.
E M MFG Co.....An enigma?
I imagine that you’re right about the wrappers Tom, they either had, or had a license to use the markings, and just continued to do so.
I have a ‘Llama’ strop that’s also stamped ‘H&H Grinding Company, Cleveland OH’. Naumi is in his 90s, so if he started making strops in his early 20’s, that’s about 1950. I’ve always assumed this strop was older than that but have never found any information in H&H Grinding Company. All Google wants to do is sell me something even when I put ‘history’ in the search term.
In times past he probably produced his strops with some custom script or just sent them foreign and some outfit or outfits got them put the familiar artwork and packaged them and sold them no different than razor makers who made pieces for retailers and put the retailers names on them or maybe co produced like the puma ducks.
Well, if he was 92 now, he would have been making in '52 when he was 20? I have one Russian dated by the Japanese barber in '41.
I always thought it was a family business before him. May be I am not reading the date right?
Here...A Russian shell which has his hand in it I feel certain. Signed and dated on back by Yamamoto the barber and the secondary sure looks like Naomi's work.
I did buy it from a Japanese seller.
Next to a Red Imp on the right. Check out the bottom stamps..
Attachment 341023Attachment 341024Attachment 341025 Attachment 341027
Indeed both are stamped EM Co and certainly don't have the signature hardware that Kanoyama's do.
The Red Imp has the blue fabric stamped on back.
This stuff is intriguing to me
Attachment 341022 Attachment 341026
It seems to me somewhere in the distant past on this site someone somewhere did some research on this EM Co and it was was fleshed out who they were. it's probably in the strops forum. All you have to do is find it. I reckon it's when we were still Straight Razor Place.
As a matter of fact there is a thread from 2009 around page 128 I think where a member has a LLama strop with a bottom mark from some beauty and supply shop and he questioned if it was a Kanayama and it was put to JimR who contacted the maker and he said it was not his strop.
I inherited a strop that was sold by a barber supply company in Toronto that has the butterfly hardware and the draw of a Kanayama. Attachment 341031Attachment 341032
Here are the H&H stamps. The Llama stamp is exactly the same as Kanoyama.
Attachment 341034
Attachment 341035
The Kanayama strops are very unique. I know of no others that feel like them. Just because it is Cordovan shell doesn't mean it's a Kanayama and if you see my post above LLama can be anything.
Guess you will have to provide a link or two, Spendur. Cannot find it..
This forum page 124 the 7th thread from the top.
So the strops forum, page 124. 7th thread down. Somebody cracked a strop?
I think it's this one ?
https://sharprazorpalace.com/strops/...need-info.html
Just goes to show ya. Stamps, logo's and model numbers ran amok back in the days.
Sounds like some sort of conspiracy.
Would bet Carl Monkhouse had a hand in it! :roflmao
Our friend Alex1921 posted this on a thread in another forum and I thought that it would be nice here for info. Think this is a Kanoyama? It has ‘Naomi’ stamped on it!
Attachment 341056