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Anybody seen a Joseph Rodgers like this before...?

I logged on to ebay a few weeks ago and there were so many nice or interesting and unusual things going on the cheap that I ended up with about five razors. The last which just arrived (as the seller had covid), and is probably the most interesting and unusual of all.

It's a rather ornate old JR wedge, in very beautiful multicoloured mottled horn scales. And given the almost stub-tail, 'His Majesty, 'GR', and the fact I think I can just about make out the remnants of a 'V' above the 'R' I'm assuming it might date to somewhere between 1820 and 1830?

Would this kind of highly-stylized spine and grind/profile be common back then? Or possibly done after? And indeed - has anyone seen or got anything similar? Cos I hadn't...


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Actually - if I'm right about the dates then it's probably exactly the kind of razor Georgie-Porgie would've gone in for. Certainly one of our more elaborately louche monarchs.
 
Actually having just seen a pic of another from a similar time - it's probably not a 'V' above the 'R', more likely the crown. So could be George III or George IV I suppose.

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Not exactly like that, no, but similar, yes. I remember one that was really worked, forget the maker but the scales were 3 piece MOP, seemed garish as heck to me, honestly. I call spines like that 'swaged' one maker, forget who, stamped them like that, so the term stuck with me. I think those embellishments were done to razors in sets, or for presentation, gifting, etc. Maybe they were custom ordered or something like that.
 
From a metalworking perspective, I have to assume that the decorated spine is original, as it appears to have been partially punched into the steel rather than ground, which could in my estimation only have been done prior to heat treatment.
 
Very cool find! That wedge-y profile is not uncommon but the spine work is. Next level.

I’ve relied on this site [theshiveringbeggar] for lots of razor info. “Essentially these stamps are just a picture of a crown with two letters to designate which monarch: G. R. for George Rex ((Rex being Latin for king, regina for queen))”
 
I'm wondering if the scales might be what worn down tortoise
looks like.


I did (optimistically) wonder that when I first got it, but as @Legion said - there is a pronounced 'grain' which apparently you don't get on Turtle/Tortoise.

And I do have another nice old Sheffield where the horn has quite a similar brown/green iridescence, though not as patterned and multicoloured as the ones here.
 
Cheers for the thoughts everybody! Sounds like the spine and profile are original then, but as I thought - somewhat unusual. Which is cool. :)

And reading through an old booklet about the history of Joseph Rodgers - George IV was actually the first royal warrant they had, so it definitely dates from 1822 to 1830. Earlier JR razors wouldn't have had 'Cutlers to His Majesty' on them.


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I did (optimistically) wonder that when I first got it, but as @Legion said - there is a pronounced 'grain' which apparently you don't get on Turtle/Tortoise.

And I do have another nice old Sheffield where the horn has quite a similar brown/green iridescence, though not as patterned and multicoloured as the ones here.

However,
horn can also be polished up to a glassy finish,
and if that was the only finish that you had ever seen on horn
then you would never be able to guess what unpolished horn looks like.

Likewise,
if the only tortoise you had ever seen was glassy polished,
then you would have no idea whether or not unfinished tortoise
had a texture similar to unfinished horn.
 
However,
horn can also be polished up to a glassy finish,
and if that was the only finish that you had ever seen on horn
then you would never be able to guess what unpolished horn looks like.

Likewise,
if the only tortoise you had ever seen was glassy polished,
then you would have no idea whether or not unfinished tortoise
had a texture similar to unfinished horn.


Mmm... fair point.

I work with horn quite a lot, but have only ever handled a couple of things made from tortoiseshell which were indeed highly polished. And I understand they can be extremely difficult to tell apart sometimes.

In the second pic above I'd polished the scales quite high, the 'grain' pattern isn't a surface texture, it's part of the structure. And from what I've read / people have told me - tortoiseshell doesn't have that(?) As I say though; I'm not an expert on TS, and it'd be lovely if they were... but I think they're horn.
 
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Mmm... fair point.

I work with horn quite a lot, but have only ever handled a couple of things made from tortoiseshell which were indeed highly polished. And I understand they can be extremely difficult to tell apart sometimes.

In the second pic above I'd polished the scales quite high, the 'grain' pattern isn't a surface texture, it's part of the structure. And from what I've read / people have told me - tortoiseshell doesn't have that(?) As I say though; I'm not an expert on TS, and it'd be lovely if they were... but I think they're horn.

Ok.
I am absolutely not an expert on horn.
I have not seen enough horn to be familiar with all of it's color patterns.

And more so not an expert on tortoise.
 
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