It could just be honing, but you also might want to check the bevel angle if you have anything accurate enough to measure the distances with. You measure front of edge to back of the honed flat on the spine, then take spine width divided by 2 and you can use some trig to figure out what 1/2 of the total included bevel angle is.
I only mention it because the tang shape says “big heavy chopper”, but the blade width looks awfully narrow compared to the spine wear from the Sheffield razors I’ve handled. I’m definitely not a Sheffield expert, but my first razor is a Thomas Turner & sons that needed a heavy restoration. Bob Keyes ground about 3/32” right off the edge side without narrowing the spine at all. He wasn’t sure if it would still shave until he rehoned and tested it. It shaves fine, but the wider bevel angle has the effect of making every dangerously sharp edge shave more like a Coticule edge, and the edge holds up for a ridiculously long time with just stropping. Here’s the blade, you can see the tang is comically wide and the edge just seems to cut off the arc of the toe and is already honing into the stabilizer even though there’s not enough spine wear to explain it.
I use mine as a reference edge sometimes, and it was what demonstrated to me that gold dollars were crap steel. If this has a slightly wider included bevel angle, then there’s really no excuse other than crap metallurgy for a gold dollar at ~19* to not take as keen an edge and only hold it literally 1/10th as long. Now I just chuckle everytime someone on here posts about “good steel”... it’s about as meaningful as when a loose acquaintance introduces you to a stranger and says “he’s a good guy”. It really just says “I don’t personally observe a reason to dislike this, but have nothing genuinely positive to say”.
I only mention it because the tang shape says “big heavy chopper”, but the blade width looks awfully narrow compared to the spine wear from the Sheffield razors I’ve handled. I’m definitely not a Sheffield expert, but my first razor is a Thomas Turner & sons that needed a heavy restoration. Bob Keyes ground about 3/32” right off the edge side without narrowing the spine at all. He wasn’t sure if it would still shave until he rehoned and tested it. It shaves fine, but the wider bevel angle has the effect of making every dangerously sharp edge shave more like a Coticule edge, and the edge holds up for a ridiculously long time with just stropping. Here’s the blade, you can see the tang is comically wide and the edge just seems to cut off the arc of the toe and is already honing into the stabilizer even though there’s not enough spine wear to explain it.
I use mine as a reference edge sometimes, and it was what demonstrated to me that gold dollars were crap steel. If this has a slightly wider included bevel angle, then there’s really no excuse other than crap metallurgy for a gold dollar at ~19* to not take as keen an edge and only hold it literally 1/10th as long. Now I just chuckle everytime someone on here posts about “good steel”... it’s about as meaningful as when a loose acquaintance introduces you to a stranger and says “he’s a good guy”. It really just says “I don’t personally observe a reason to dislike this, but have nothing genuinely positive to say”.