What's new

Swaty Barbers Hone History Maribor, Jugoslavien

SRD was an importer, they sold a plethora of shaving stuff. They were located in NYC. 1892-1924.
 
Last edited:
I have one of the Jugo (yugo) 3 line swaty hones that has "Old Swaty Hone" stamped on the side. It's a neat little piece.
 
Does anyone have an in depth history of the Franz Swaty Hone history, I have a few and then ran across this one I can find no info on.

Franz Swaty, Maribor Jugoslavien

My guess is this one is after Franz (the father) died?

maybe i can add a few historical facts about this since i'm from vienna and it seems that atleast a few of these been collected by some.

1. the 'währing bei wien'-hones ('bei' means nearby, next to, near) indicates to be pre 1892. währing was before '92 a suburb from vienna till the emperor franz joseph I. made them suburbs to districts of vienna. währing is since then till this day the 18th district of the city. If swaty just didnt change the hallmark of his hones, i dont know, but after 1882 there was atleast no 'währing bei wien'.

2. The marburg hones need to be pre 1918, if before or after the 'währing bei wien' ones i dont know, but after ww1 the city was called maribor and almost for thousand years it was part of the the holy roman empire (Sacrum Imperium Romanum) named marburg mostly under control of the 'habsburger'-dynasty (old old austrian princely house).

3. therefor it indicates that the maribor ones are after 1918.



That would indicate the 3 line Wahring hones were the first, and after that - the 2 line hones were made by his son in Marburg (renamed Maribor later on).
The company started in the late 1870s, was still in business in 2005 or so but I don't know if they're still in business.

i think you are pretty much spot on of what you think you dont remember.


When the name is spelled differently, with a "c"in Franc instead of a "z", then you're....

to be honest this doesnt have much to do with the hone but i think there is very much speculative stuff going on here. first i dont know this gentleman swaty but if he was polish origin i guess he would named hisself 'franciszek' bc thats the polish version of franz. franc is the slowenian version and maribor is in the today called state slowenia south of the austrian border. (dont confuse the german marburg near frankfurt with slovenian marburg/maribor)

second, marburg was after ww1 against the will of the population and without any kind of vote (neither people nor politicians of any level) part of southslavia (later yugoslavia). thats how things go after conflicts of this size (ww1).

third @ethnic pride - marburg was 1000 years part of the empire. in words 'one thousand'. + he was named after several emperors. 'franz'. i dont know on top of my head how many of the habsburger dynasty had this first name but there were alot. it a very common oldoldschool name in austria.

fourth dont confuse austria with germany. so there was no germanize. but yes i am almost 100 that he was slavic origin. but that was nothing special at the time bc it was like i mentioned 1000y part an empire. i looked just for fun in the city archives of vienna after his name and found uncountable 'swatys' let alone 'franz' at the time. too many to even think of to start further digging.

fifth nationalistic tendencies started way way before in europe btw but that would be extremly ot. if you are interested look up 'roman empire' or after that period of history 'holy roman empire' thats where one can start to date crumbling empires in bits and pieces. 'borders' were extremly elastic and volatile over the period of the last 2k years. let alone 2 wws, uncountable conflicts, religious influences - be it strong presence of religious belief and influence ('holy roman empire'), the crumbling of said or islamic invasions. all that didnt vanished without a trace and played a huge role.

this all wasnt meant offensive, rude or like a head teacher btw just to clear some things up a lil or put in perspective.


 
Wow, Thank you for putting all this time and effort into this. Always nice to add more to our understanding of the history of these things.
 
  • Like
Reactions: ogu
So is it correct in thinking I have a pre-1918 one? Any thoughts on this one?

Thanks!

Vr

Matt

These are sellers photos, and it should arrive sometime next week:

1ACC82EF-B628-4EE6-B27F-263A0D4F1E9D.jpeg
603021DD-503A-4329-9E24-ED0701DBE56C.jpeg
F7B7803D-5B46-486F-8C2A-C94B76F15E58.jpeg
BB52B208-795E-4F90-B358-9B3D101D563D.jpeg
C662030D-63DD-4080-AD4D-520B201EEE6F.jpeg
B51245A5-D645-4638-B335-82BC108307CB.jpeg
DA138C3B-E303-4BCD-8E69-C63369204A20.jpeg
 
So is it correct in thinking I have a pre-1918 one? Any thoughts on this one?

Thanks!

Vr

Matt

i'd definitely say yes matt. only pre 1918 it was austria. from 1918 til early '40s marburg was integrated in the kingdom of yugoslavia. ww2 it was part of the ostmark for few years, after war sfr yugoslavia.
 
i'd definitely say yes matt. only pre 1918 it was austria. from 1918 til early '40s marburg was integrated in the kingdom of yugoslavia. ww2 it was part of the ostmark for few years, after war sfr yugoslavia.

Thanks! I haven’t used it, and figure I may not...just a neat piece of shave kit history!

Vr

Matt
 
  • Like
Reactions: ogu
So my 2 line franz swaty, marburg austria is older than my 4 line franz swaty, maribor jugoslavia,
fruher, marburg austria?
 
yes. austria ones are older than yugoslavia ones 100%. there was simply no place/state/kingdom/union/whatever called yugoslavia in any shape or form when marburg was austria.

[früher = formerly, once, previously,..] - dont know if that is indicated on your box or hone or whatever or i'm misunderstanding smthg about the way you posted it.

zero clue what the lines on the hones are about btw. different 'grits' maybe, or only different width, idk, just wildly speculating on my part here. @Gamma seems to have knowledge and hands on experience on different models of them.
 
@Matt O show a pic of the impressed logo on the hone itself.


The term "Three Line", an unofficial designation, means there are three lines of text on the hone, and one line says Wharing Bei Wien. Those are the oldest versions; they are the "Three Line Swaty" hones.

There are other Swaty hones with 3 lines of text but they are not 'Three Line" Swaty hones.
There are many stories about how the name came to see the light of day. My personal belief is that someone in the barbering industry coined the term. Doesn't matter though, it's just a nickname.

The "Two Line" hones were considered to be the Marburg versions. Along with the later Maribor versions, they were made by Franz' son.

The text block was only branding/advertising, it did not indicate grit, size, etc. It did signify which side of the hone was for 'finishing'. Somewhere I remember reading that the back side could be dressed down with emery to create a rougher/coarser side but right now I can't remember if that was 'official' info or just someone's personal hack. But the stone is consistent through and through - one grit so to speak.

I have a 1" thick Wahring Swaty on my desk, I want to believe it was a prototype but there's no way to know.



proxy.php
 
wowzers. maybe it is really a prototype or it is the 'diamond'-version mentioned in the advertisement below. hmm



i found something funny but also interesting. i dont want to turn this place into something that it isnt so please forgive me but i post it nonetheless since its quite unique i think and still on-topic.
i googled a bit and looked up the austrian national library for that time span. there are imperial and royal reference books dating back hundreds of years, now digitalized. i picked randomly one - year 1911. this thing has around 1500 pages. mostly who had what position in every and any part of the territory. it has a lil bit of a clownesque touch to it but also something fascinating how detailed.

k&k.jpg


i found franz swaty in it. this fine gentleman was certified from the emperor and is listed in the section ‘imperial and royal household/court of the apostolic majesty’. yes, there were probably a few thousands of them titles from all kind of fields of expertise [but since vienna was by the time one of the 4 or 5 biggest cities on earth and this book is about the whole empire, its not that much and quite exclusive if you think about it], and yes austrians were always (and comically and idiotically still are) crazy about titles. anyways, here is what i found…

___________________________________
swaty k&k.jpg

catalogue of imperial and royal court names - section:
swaty franziska [female version of franz so it has to be his wife], businessowner: franz swaty, manufacturing and trading with synthetic grinding- and sharpening stones, abrasive and polishing materials in marburg near/at the drau (imperial-royal supplier)
footer: *branch also in vienna
[so it seems, since there is no * at the swatys, that the production facility was def in vienna but the business was in marburg at the time]
[in this section are also 'foreigners', all kind of winedealers, remy martin, moet, shoemaker from paris and st petersburg, jewlers, tailors and silktraders, bakery from monaco, lol...? no clue how swaty made it in this section with hones and abrasives to be honest, but maybe i'm thinking just wrong idk]
___________________________________

advertisement - section: [only around 20 pages total at the very end of the book, he had a full page, no clue if you had to pay for it or if this was something somebody decided. the famous grandpiano manufacturer ‘bösendorfer’ had a 1/8 of one of those pages, further banks, jewlers or daimler and a bit weird random stuff]

______
franz swaty.jpg

purveyor to the imperial and royal court

franz swaty
marburg, styria
kontor: streetaddress (there is no such street nowadays in vienna but a few eleswhere in austria (eg. in linz, maybe there was one in vienna or marbug back in the days idk)
factory: streetaddress in vienna [well known, one of biggest streets southbound out of city since centuries, but its def not in district währing, and never was, 100%]

manufacturing and trade with synthetic grinding- and sharpening stones. warehouse with all kind of variety of naturalstones for sharpening purposes. established in the year 1879 from the inventor of alumin-stones engineer franz swaty
______

3x registered branded trademarks. swaty stone alumin (top left), swaty stone diamond (top right), swaty stone rapid (bottom)
middle text: both stones enjoy worldwide reputation for best razor honing
______

swaty-stone “rapid” - best sharpening stone for tools
swaty’s skinstone most warmly recommended by whilom prof. dr. kaposi
nail files and so on and so on.
own stone quarrys
- export to all countries worldwide -
____________________________________


source, unfortunatly only in german : ALEX - Historische Rechts- und Gesetzestexte - http://alex.onb.ac.at/shb.htm
 
I'll add to Gamma's comments on the "Unofficial" three line designation.

There are also SRD and maybe Pike hones that are actually impressed with "Swaty Three-Line Hone". These, ironically, are not what people are referring to when they say "Three Line Swaty". They were made in America, much later, probably to capitalize on the reputation/popularity of Swaty hones.
 
need to make a minor correction, i made a stupid translation error.

'franziska swaty owner of the company: franz swaty, manufacturing and trading [...]' - is the precise and only correct translation. so she owned the business that is or was named franz swaty. [wife was my assumption, could also be his sister or whatever]
my bad
 
I now really wonder how many varieties are there? My assumption is they are the same stone , (with the exception of the 8"), different names.

Hello,

Sorry to bother you, but do you have any info on that 8" Swaty Hone? For starters, what color is it?

Thanks man.

-grayswandir.
 
Top Bottom