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Albert Bellefontaine Parfumerie, the man behind it...

Luc

"To Wiki or Not To Wiki, That's The Question".
Staff member
It looks like the same model that I got, "Happy Barber".
 
Aye!, finished cleaning...all done with Maas metal polish, by hand

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rubbed the gold wash off. no biggie, I wanted it clean...I'm not interested in preserving the bling

Best,


Jake
Reddick Fla.
 
I'm having trouble loading pics and why I'm posting in more than one post

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I started off correcting the bevels using this Chosera 1 K

after cleaning up the bevels with the synthetic stone I switched over to my la petit blanc bout

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Somehow, although I loaded up a bunch of honing pics to flickr, I must not have saved them...and I deleted them from my camera card as it was full, in order to capture one of the above pics :a6:

Anyways, the first edge I crafted, I finished with les latnueses coticule, jumping from the lpb to the les lat, but I wasn't getting HHT4 along the entire edge as it was only hitting HHT3 at the toe and 4 everywhere else (after stropping)...so I made a decision to dull the edge and start over, going back to LPB for bevel correction, then, I honed dilucot using my la verte coticule...a 40X150mm hone

I thought I was going to get a good edge but it didn't pan out either, IOW, I wasn't seeing HHT4 all over the edge, only in some places so back to the drawing board. For whatever reason, I decided to go bback to the LPB bout, do some heavy lifting with thick milk slurry, thin it out and stay on that hone

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And that's what I did...I stayed with this bout (La Petit Blanche) and diluted it out, made more slurry, fresh slurry and honed some more. I refreshed the slurry 3 X's. As far as strokes go, I was all over the board...1/2's, x's, swaying x's, circles, elliptical circles, a real mixed bag but I kept waiting to feel the edge come around at each stage (dilution) and it finally paid off as I saw HHT4 all up and down the edge <phew!>

I easily spent two hours on this edge...but sometimes that's what it takes. they're not all 15-20 minutes. Shave later...I'm outta coffee and have to go & roast some


Best,


Jake
Reddick Fla.
 

Luc

"To Wiki or Not To Wiki, That's The Question".
Staff member
Mine is fairly easy to maintain after that, from my notes, around 30 laps on the finisher stone and it's shave ready again.
 
Hi there. I am just trying to find some info on this bottle. I live in southern ontario found it in my barn. Thanks
 

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Luc

"To Wiki or Not To Wiki, That's The Question".
Staff member
Bummer, the pictures are gone from the original post.

nice bottle. I’ve never seen one but chances are, it’s from the same shop!
 
I saw this thread a few weeks ago and was really impressed in terms of the quality and depth of the research. I would like to dig it out, because I recently was able to get a Bellefontaine straight razor, which was offered in Germany.
Albert Bellefontaine_Montreal_0001.JPG

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Albert Bellefontaine_Montreal_0010.JPG


I suspect my razor was made in the later phase of Parfumerie Bellefontaine.
The fully hollow and finely ground 5/8" blade has a beautiful gold decoration that says 'BELLEFONTAINE DE LUXE'. The tang is marked on the front with 'A. Bellefontaine', 'Montreal' (not really recognizable if you don't know) and 'Made in Germany'. The back of the tang is embossed 'Made from Kayser Ellison & Co. Best Sheffield Silver Steel'". The scales show the typical Bellefontaine bell. The razor is in relatively good condition, it has a little pitting, which appears to be much more pronounced in the photos than it actually is. Only the tip of the tang is more heavily attacked.
Unfortunately, it does not reveal its exact origin, i.e. which Solingen manufacturer made it.

I don't know whether this razor made its way across the Atlantic and then returned to Europe. In my opinion, the relatively good condition does not speak for it. I asked the seller where it is from. He told me that it had turned up in Belgium, but that he didn't know anything more than that. These mysteries will probably never be solved, so I'll just shave with it and enjoy it.

When looking for information about A. Bellefontaine, I found two pictures of him in the Journals 'The American Perfumer and Essential Oil Review', June 1933, page 172 (Albert Bellefontaine on a golf course) and 'The American Perfumer and Essential Oil Review', August 1953, page 149 (Albert Bellefontaine, First President of the Canadian Toilet Goods Mfrs. Assn.)
I'm not sure if I'm allowed to show them here for copyright reasons, so to be on the safe side I only quote the sources here.

Furthermore, I found a picture of a straight razor manufactured for A. Bellefontaine, which was clearly made in Solingen by A. Feist & Co. Lunawerk (Moon Cutlery Works). For copyright reasons the same here.

If anyone is interested in seeing please send me a PM.
 
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