so here are 3 I picked up for $40. I don't know much about them so if anybody has thoughts etc let me know. T.Noonan & Sons (Boston Mass.) 5/8 Wade & Butcher (Sheffield England) 5/8 Arthur Balfour & Co (Sheffield England) 6/8 the first two's blades appear to be near shave ready? the final razor has a nick in the blade so i'm going to try and find someone who may be able to sharpen it for me.
alright well after a phone call here's some more for the post H.Boker & Co Solingen King Cutter (w/matching box) 5/8 H.Boker & Co w/box 5/8 both look to be shave ready.
They all will need proper sharpening (I'd bet not one of them is shave ready, they rarely are) but they're gonna be great daily shavers!
I had a feeling but I don't know much about straight's. Just gonna take a bit to find somebody that can get them prepped for me.
I have a T Noonan & Sons blade looks similar (5/8 square point). It is an excellent razor. With proper sharpening you will have many hours of pleasurable shaving. Enjoy!
I may keep one or two but the rest will be for sale. I think I'll keep the Noonan and the king cutter. Lol I don't even use straights but there just so damn catchy and beg to be purchased.
If you're going to keep only two of them those are the ones I'd choose. They're in the best shape, and the King Cutter is just about guaranteed to be a first class shaver.
that was my uneducated assumption just based on the looks of the razors, who knows I may keep them all we'll see if $$ allows.
the other question I had was how can you tell the material the scales are made of? I'm new to this so if anyone can tell by the pics or whatever let me know.
they all look like plastic to me in the photos once you have other kinds of scales in your hands that you already know are made of horn, turtleshell, ivory, or whatever, then it's hard to know for sure what you have. You can compare with pictures online and there are also some potentially destructive tests that can tell you whether your scales are plastic or not The best way really would just be to send the razors to TSD Museum where the curator can give you a positive identification for a small donation. Contact me for details
from what i've seen of the king cutter, most came with ivory, what i payed for it would reflect that I think but who knows. I may be interested in finding out more about the ones I intend to keep but we'll see what I do after there all sharpened and ready to go.
if you paid for ivory scales on the king kutter, you might reconsider your purchase if it's a possibility either way it's a nice looking boker
I'm not really sure what these go for thus I'm not sure if I payed alot or a little, but up close the scale has color variants similar to a piece of polished old ivory, grooved slightly, very hard to show in the picture with the camera I was trying to use. Is there any type of database etc that a person can read into to possibly gain a rough date for these razors, or is that pretty difficult?
SRP has a database with a few hundred razors with thousands of photos and many of them have been approximately dated. you can see many different ivory scales in the database as well as plastic, horn, etc. It's a nice place to start, but there is a lot to look at so be ready for that Here is a neat website that shows some older straight razors with approximate dates that is very interesting for razors made around the 1850s and earlier: http://www.eldelphin.eu/v.html#timeline Boker used different logos during different years: Usually a blade shape will give you an approximate date range (the grind, the point style, the tang and tail style and shape, the presence of features such as jimps, spinework, thumbnotches, etc), and you'll try to compare that with the dates of operation of the company who made and/or sold your razor and/or the dates the brand that is on your razor was used. The style, material, and decor of the scales can help as well Generally speaking, all of your razors you posted here look like early 20th century (1900-1925) - hope that helps more than confuses
That last poor Boker had some serious grinding done to it. Lotta hone wear there. The King Cutter looks great!
There actually all from the same seller at a local antique shop. I bought the first 3 and a soon as he heard he brought 5 more in, he's got a beautiful toroise handle str8 but i don't remember the make, unfortunatley he wanted 120 for it. He also had a couple of nude handle razors, also in the 130 range with mint blades. Lol unfortunatly the 5 i purchased burnt up my cash for now.
So the noonan and the king cutter shall stay the balfour may have a new home, the rest however shall be transfered to classifieds this afternoon. Damn school tuition.
