My Haul from Prague.

[seymour]

I was in Prague for a few days as a stop on my honeymoon. While there I went in at least 20 antique store throughout the city between the normal tourist stops. It was a nice pit stop that yielded a few keepsakes, but showed the country's varied past.

In total I got 8 straights--7 were from a single shop (Vitezua) on Vetesuictvo. The owner probably had 20 total, but I left the ones that were toothpicks or simply too damaged. That guy was a trip--very old school and loved to play chess with himself. At the very least his English was conversant.

I wanted create a honeymoon set that really stressed the region. The last straight was from a random antique store that I don't recall the location or name off, sorry. Really, there weren't any other shops that had any straights so aside from the before mentioned shop there might not be (m)any others.

1. Anton Wingen Jr.; W. Clauberg "Pipe", 50. This is German, sure but I can't nail down production dates.





2. R. Umlauf Bratislava; Made From Kayser Ellison & Co.'s Best Sheffield Silver Steel. Any thoughts on this one?





3. C.V. Heljestrand No. 24 in perfect condition. It's not regionally relevant, but I couldn't pass it up.

4. S. Pearson & Co. Sheffield No. 23. with "Wiener Schaner" engraved on the blade.

5. Gottlieb Hammersfahr; Solengen, Foche "Pyramid", 103

6. Hugokoller, Solingen "Bird" 108

7. "L.S" 701. I was told this one is actually Czech, yet I can't find anything about it.




I hit the noob upload picture limitation. Please let me know if you want to see more pictures of any of them.

I'd love to be able to track down additional vitals on any of these pieces.

Cheers.

 

[Nxspam]

Nice score. How was Prague?

 

[Greybeard]

An interesting haul.

1. Anton Wingen Jr. was founded in 1888 as a cutlery maker. W. Clauberg was founded around 1850. The companies were run separately under the same ownership from 1890 until 1920 when Clauberg was fully incorporated into Wingen.
This is only a theory. Because there are both names on the blade I believe it would be from around 1920. Wingen would have been incorporating Clauberg's remaining stock and restamping blanks with their own name. Wingen was in business until 1988.
I'd be interested in seeing a better picture of the Clauberg side of the shank. It looks like it has a pipe logo on it, which didn't belong to Wingen.

2. From what I can gather, R. Umlauf was a distributor/retailer in Bratislava. Someone would have made the razor for them and I'm not sure who.

3. Others know more about Heljestrand than I do and there's lots of info if you search the forum.

4. S. Pearson & Co. were a Sheffield razor maker. They had an active branch in Germany in the second half of the 19th century. If the blade doesn't have England on it then it was made between 1856 to 1891, which would fit. "Wiener Schaber" translates to "Vienna Scraper", a moustache and trim razor.

5. Gottlieb and Hammesfahr registered the Pyramid trademark in 1904. They wre in business from 1684 -1971.

6. Hugo Koller started in 1861. The bird is an eagle. They are still in business (through a few ownership changes) today.

7. No idea.

All good brands and should be good razors. They all seem to be small razors. Do you favor smaller blades or is that what was available?

 

[seymour]

Prague was a blast. The history, food, and the beer were even better than expected. I felt even safer in Prague than some parts of Paris even though we were in a relatively shadier part of the city. I'd recommend the city to anyone.

Peter, thanks for the info load on that. I don't particularly favor smaller blades, that's really all that was available. I'm assumine a few lucky people found the stash before me and grabbed the larger and choice ones. Most of the ones I was able to pick up were 4/8.

1. The Pipe



7. Just for fun.



Again, thanks.

 

[Greybeard]

That's really interesting. At that time the pipe logo was a registered trademark of George Wostenholm.