Thread: Razors before the late 1800's.

I've been watching eBay and this forum for near-to a year now and I've noticed that the vast majority of razors that I see from before the late 1800's are Sheffield razors with a few French here and there.

Where are all the other antique razors? Is this simply due to the numbers game, and Sheffield and Paris had the biggest numbers?

Sheffield was instrumental in the development of modern steel. In the 1740's, they developed the crucible steel process that allowed them to create a higher quality steel in large quantities. Up until then, steel was created in smaller batches and was extremely expensive by the standards of the early 1800's. As a result, Sheffield kinda took the lead in quality, cheap steel and the razor market jumped right into that. I suppose other razors were being created during the same time period, but would have been of low production and quite possibly inferior steel to that coming from Sheffield. It's this better and cheaper steel that helped fuel the industrial revolution.

That's like someone asking why there are so few Swiss Watches from the 1700s. The answer is the progression of the industry started pretty much in England and then spread. The same with razors. I guess the quality stuff started there early on and then spread to other countries who developed their cutlery industries later on. I'm sure you can find makers in other countries at all points in history but they were the exception more than the rule.

Originally Posted by red96ta

Sheffield was instrumental in the development of modern steel. In the 1740's, they developed the crucible steel process that allowed them to create a higher quality steel in large quantities. Up until then, steel was created in smaller batches and was extremely expensive by the standards of the early 1800's. As a result, Sheffield kinda took the lead in quality, cheap steel and the razor market jumped right into that. I suppose other razors were being created during the same time period, but would have been of low production and quite possibly inferior steel to that coming from Sheffield. It's this better and cheaper steel that helped fuel the industrial revolution.

True enough. But... Solingen had mechanized hammers back into the 1500's. There is surviving cutlery produced by their guilds. Where are the razors, is what I wonder? Did they simply not survive because, being in more regular use, their primitive steel rusted them away?

Originally Posted by thebigspendur

That's like someone asking why there are so few Swiss Watches from the 1700s. The answer is the progression of the industry started pretty much in England and then spread. The same with razors. I guess the quality stuff started there early on and then spread to other countries who developed their cutlery industries later on. I'm sure you can find makers in other countries at all points in history but they were the exception more than the rule.

Well no. What I'm asking is much more like 'where are the pocket watches made outside Switzerland before 1700'.

(And I know that the answer is in lots of museums).

This all really comes down to an argument for the numbers game. Sheffield and Paris produced the great bulk of the early razors, so they're almost all we see, with the very occasional exception.

Surely though, just because Sheffield dominated the production of razors, that did not make locally produced razors from the same time period vanish?

The thing is, I've seen exactly one razor that falls into the area I'm asking about (and I don't count the razor in the Mayflower exhibit because I haven't seen a picture of it good enough to know if it's the real deal or a recreation).

But maybe I'm too easily assuming that many of the razors of mysterious provenance, with unknown marks or no marks, are from the known-world of production.