An Interesting Razor: Mappin & Webb Wedge

Use a straight. You know it makes sense.
Post Reply
User avatar
drmoss_ca
Admin
Posts: 10731
Joined: Thu Jul 08, 2004 4:39 pm

An Interesting Razor: Mappin & Webb Wedge

Post by drmoss_ca »

This one is a mixture of old and new. Sixteen or seventeen years ago I learned that Mappin & Webb razors were very highly regarded, so I went off and searched for one, and found this old wedge. I quickly discovered the recommendation was well-founded, and decided the somewhat ragged original scales had to be replaced. They were made of an uncertain material, which I have seen diagnosed as leather, papier-maché, giraffe horn and prunella. I believe I still have them, if I'm ever inspired to put them back. The current scales are stabilised dark green wood bolsters on thin brass plates, which used to be the kind of thing that Classic Shaving sold in Ray Dupont's day. RIP, Ray, just as well you can't see what became of your creation.

Back to business. Mappin & Webb is a brand I know. When my parents married (yes, despite the rumours about me, they were married!) in 1950, everything in England was still rationed. But a girl could still hope, and a canteen of cutlery from Mappin & Webb was still one of the prizes that one might win if lucky. That's where I first heard the name, but it is an old one indeed. Jonathan Mappin started out in 1775 as a Sheffield cutler. The business prospered, but as the family grew divisions appeared. One of his four great grandsons, John, left to start a London-based business in Oxford Street in 1860, and in 1862 he invited his brother in law, George Webb to join him. George died in 1881, but the business continued, selling cutlery made in Sheffield. The remaing great grandsons of the founder carried on in Sheffield as Mappin Brothers Ltd, until the business was sold in 1884, going broke ten years later. In 1903, a John Mappin, probably a great great grandson of the founder, acquired the Mappin Brothers name of the defunct Sheffield business, and the London business, and traded as "Mappin & Webb Ltd incorporating Mappin Brothers". Now one firm had manufacturing and a West End salesroom on a fashionable street. It went from strength to strength, but at some point was acquired by the Asprey Garrard jewellery empire. These days it is held by a marketing group that sells overpriced Swiss watches to the gullible English and anyone else who thinks shopping in London is a good idea. Mappin & Webb sell only jewellery and watches, no cutlery, and certainly no straight razors. "How are the mighty fallen."

Let's compare all that history with the razor. From the front:

Image

The back:

Image

and the shank:

Image

So the Mappin & Webb name means the razor is from 1862 or later. Even in 1862, this was an old-fashioned razor, as hollow grinds were already replacing framebacks, never mind wedges. It might be that even then they were catering to the 'carriage trade' and older, wealthier clients may have sought to replace the wedge they were used to using (or, more likely, having used upon themselves). Oh, maybe the self-shaving poorer people were used to wedges, liked wedges, and wanted more wedges, and thus the works in Sheffield turned out wedges for the workers of the midlands and the rest of the country. The working classes are generally very conservative (with a small 'c'!) But this was branded and sold in Oxford Street, London. This was a carriage trade razor and was sold to someone well-to-do. I don't know if the breakaway Mappin & Webb sourced their manufacture in the other brothers' business in Sheffield, or whether there was bad blood precluding such a cosy arrangement. Anyway, the upshot to me is that an old-fashioned razor sold in the 1860's West End by a salesroom trying hard to win an upmarket position must have been selling to an older and wealtheir buyer. I call it old-fashioned for the 1860's not just because of the wedge grind, but also the swooping concave spine, the rudimentary stabiliser barely distinguished from the lower cutaway of the shank (the cutaway itself much smaller than on a classic W&B for example. It was to disappear almost entirely before the end of the 1860s). The shank stamp includes a banner over the Mappin & Webb name that reads, with difficulty, "Trustworthy". Is that a crown or an "M" surmounting it? An 'M', apparently. Obviously this razor was not for export to the American market after 1891, as it would have had to be marked with a country of manufacture. Old-fashioned wedges were made up to that date, but not with scales like this:

Image

Image

or on the inside:
Image

These scales might be about 160 years old, but they are still flexible. Brass rivets made from wire, not pre-formed. Tiny little rosettes and a soft lead wedge. Some kind of grain visible on the inside surface of the back scale. I think it's leather of some kind. Obviously not scales of the later 1800s at all.

So much for provenance and age. The blade is mirror-polished steel (at a wild guess, I'd venture it is Sheffield steel!) There are a few dark marks where rust has been polished off, and the square point is no longer quite square, just as if someone fitted scales that were found to bind on the point and so a little was ground off ( :oops: ). It's obvious from the unequal shank cutaway on front vs. back that this was entirely hand ground, and yet the bevel is small and even on both sides of the blade, and the spine shows little wear. One reason I loved this razor right from the start was that it was ridiculously easy to hone into what always felt like perfection. Standards have changed over the decades, and the honing this morning also seemed easy, and in a couple of days I'll see if perfection herself has moved her goalposts. I think she will have.

All in all, a razor that isn't showy, which was old-fashioned when made and sold, and which doesn't look like it has seen heavy use. Perhaps all those mutton chops and sideburns have preserved razors for us in better condition than we might have expected. Despite looking like nothing special, it hones up easily and has always shaved beautifully. I'm a bit torn about the scales - the old ones are authentic but truly boring; I think she deserves the fancier ones. This morning I thumbed the edge, smiled, and visited the coticule briefly, then the transArk with water, detergent and then glycerine. A good stropping, and in a couple of days her turn will come and I don't doubt she will shine as brightly as ever.
"Je n'ai pas besoin de cette hypothèse."
Pierre-Simon de Laplace
User avatar
drmoss_ca
Admin
Posts: 10731
Joined: Thu Jul 08, 2004 4:39 pm

Re: An Interesting Razor: Mappin & Webb Wedge

Post by drmoss_ca »

A sublime shave, typical of a wedge there was that soft vibration like very thin fabric being torn as it beheaded all the stubble. No sting with the aftershave, and smooth as glass. That's why we like old Sheffield wedges! Easy to hone and superb results - especially as it shaves like this with no pastes. Yet another razor I could be happy with if there could only be one.
"Je n'ai pas besoin de cette hypothèse."
Pierre-Simon de Laplace
oeilvert
Posts: 6
Joined: Sat Jul 11, 2020 10:37 am

Re: An Interesting Razor: Mappin & Webb Wedge

Post by oeilvert »

Very nice, I also love Mappin & Webb razors... Here's my old pair:

ImageMappin & Webb Straight Razor Set by James Buckmaster, on Flickr

Those old scales you removed were fitted to the majority of British Army issued straight razors in WW1... Presumably because they were the cheapest material they could find! Coincidentally your razor is the exact style that was issued: 6/8" wedge with square point, that basic stabiliser design, those nasty scales and never an "England" stamp that I've ever seen. Perhaps they were using up old blade stocks which had been laying around in warehouses for decades or something?

Makes sense to me, wedges are tough old workhorses unlike delicate hollow ground designs, the scales were cheap and did what they were intended, guard the blade. They were supplied with many different Sheffield makers marks but they're all extremely similar, as if built to a pattern which they no doubt were.

I'm not saying yours is a WW1 era razor, but it's highly probable in my opinion.
Post Reply