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Wostenholm or bomb shard?
Here we have another eBay find. At first glance it more or less typifies the experience of eBay for me. The razor looks pretty objectively awful. I grabbed it because it cost me almost nothing and I knew it'd be good for the experience of polishing and, failing that, I could probably save the scales to use on another razor (in my experience, black horn is the unstoppable teenage slasher villain of scale materials; it just keeps coming back).
I assumed this was yet another late model razor that had been kept in a submarine or something.
There is absolutely no sign of a blade etch, as most of the Wostenholm razors I've found have.
Even once I got it in the mail I was still pretty sure it was 1880's, though those collars on the pins were a bit suspicious. But hey, I don't really know how long ones like that were in use. The blade is light. It seems pretty hollow. Except that looking point-on doesn't support that. It's very wedgy, but thin.
But that stamp really doesn't look very modern. And as it turns out, the tail is quite short. As short as the tail on my GR stamped W&B.
So I did what I always do. Hit the googles.
I couldn't turn up any blades that are a match for this one in terms of size/shape/stamps. I did turn up this neat little history of Wostenholm as a brand, however.
Based on my reading of that page and the other info I've found, I'm guessing this razor was made between 1823 and 1840, putting it solidly with my pack of old-guys. The brevity of the markings makes me think it's on the earlier side of that range, but it feels so light, unlike any of the 1820's-30's razors I have.
Despite an ugly bevel and an uglier blade, it gives a good, close shave! Not the most comfortable, but I wouldn't have even thought something that looks like this would work.
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Originally Posted by Neil Miller
