Rooney small style 1 brush in finest badger
Truefitt & Hill Luxury Shaving Soap
Hand American strop
5/8 Thiers-Issard "Pierre Thiers Limited Edition"
Pinaud Clubman aftershave

This particular Thiers-Issard is a limited run of roughly 400 blades that they found in the back of their warehouse a few years ago.  They were hand-forged by the company's founder Pierre Thiers in the late 1800s from Sheffield steel, and had apparently been set aside and never used.  These razors are an odd thing both by vintage or modern standards.  For one thing they are all slightly different, which is consistent with hand-forging but still strange in an era where these things were mass-produced the way Mach 3's are today.  But some consistent styling elements include:

- the barber's notch at the end of the blade (in a variety of sizes and positions)
- a bellied blade with an "S" shaped spine, the scalloped jimping on the bottom of the shank (you can clearly see this in the photo)
- the double-ground but only half-hollow blade (most double-ground blades are paper-thin in the middle of the blade, but on these razors the sides of the blade are only slightly dished in despite two passes on the grinder)
- the small duck-tail tail on the razor

Also in an odd turn for Sheffield steel, these razors seem to have a very high carbon content and take an extremely fine edge.  Most Sheffield razors of that vintage aren't terribly hard - they will take a good edge but won't keep it very long, but they are easy to hone.  Razors in that era from the other major steelmaking regions like Solingen, the USA, and Eskilstuna (Sweden) tend to be much harder than Sheffield razors.  But this TI razors, made from Sheffield steel, is a standout performer even compared with the best modern razors using the best modern steel.

Posted by: mparker762 at 06:23 AM
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