Sheffield steel for 21/- with a silver plated handle – What Luxury for shavers in this 1913 advertisement from The Durham-Duplex Razor Co Ltd of Sheffield. A guinea would have gone a long way in 1913.
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Durham Duplex still manufacture millions of blades every month in Sheffield the UK’s cradle of engineering excellence. They ‘stock the worlds most comprehensive range of standard designs to suit all your cutting, slitting, trimming, slicing, and scraping needs.’ 14,000 lines and that is a lot of cutting capability. Started at the end of king Edward Vll reign in 1910 they will be celebrating 100 years production in this cut throat business next year.
They recently acted as the Industrial Sponsor for Myers Grove School for the Master Cutler’s “Made in Sheffield” Innovation Competition . The pupils worked on a design then at Kelham Island they demonstrated the results to a panel including the Master Cutler.
Early razors made of horn, flint or stone with bone handles have been excavated from Neolithic caves. The ancient razors from the Late Stone Age slowly evolved, and by 3000 B.C. hieroglyphics and tomb excavations show that the people of Mesopotamia were shaving with finely honed obsidian blades. Rolls Razors developed safety razors in the the post war years which are collected by those interested in ‘Barberiana’, the term given to collectible items that have to do with shaving.
Cut throat razors can still be bought from example at Executive Shaving a Yorkshire business that recently set up new premises in Plymouth.
After the business soft soap I also came across a 1920’s advert for Erasmic Shaving Sticks that have no special links to Yorkshire.
Erasmic by zimpenfish CC BY 2.0