Saturday Afternoon Antique Shop Scrounge.

**RobAtSGH** · 06-02-2012, 04:33 PM

Today's catches: a 5/8 tortoise-shell Genco (Geneva Cutlery) "Vanadium" in really good nick. A little bit of cleaning and hone a new edge, and this one's in the rotation. No hone wear that I can tell, almost new condition.

From the same shop, the guy behind the counter pulls out another plain case saying "I just got this one here, and I was gonna clean it up a bit - it's real dirty."

I asked how much he was going to price it for, and he replied "$15."

I managed to keep a decent poker face when I opened the box to find a Wade and Butcher wedge with Masonic etching, with markings and a style that (with a cursory phone search) points to the mid-1800's. Yeah - it's patina'd all to hell, had some surface rust on the spine and shank, the scales are toast (one is a wood replacement, the other original horn scale has bug damage), and it looks like someone tried to unsuccessfully clean the etching at some point.

But, the edge is in fairly clean shape, no frowning, and it's imminently restoreable. I've steel-wooled the rust down to black patina and tried to smooth down some of the previous cleaning marks. Tomorrow, I may tape up the spine and set to work on the stones and remake the edge.

Even with a full restore, it won't ever be a collector - too much against it from prior use and cleaning efforts. But, I do have a chance to return a potentially 150+ year-old razor to service, and saved it from further scotch-brite indignity. And that's pretty cool.

**Wid** · 06-02-2012, 04:39 PM

I can't see the pics LOL

**RobAtSGH** · 06-02-2012, 04:47 PM

I'll post pics to the thread once I get to my camera. Can't get a decent shot with the phone, and the house is in considerable disarray after a central air-conditioning install that wrapped yesterday. Nikon's in a box in my office that needs to get unpacked yet.

Hooray construction dust!

**hokahay** · 06-02-2012, 05:17 PM

No I didn’t. Honest… I ran out of gas. I, I had a flat tire. I didn’t have enough money for cab fare. My tux didn’t come back from the cleaners. An old friend came in from out of town. Someone stole my car. There was an earthquake. A terrible flood. Locusts. IT WASN’T MY FAULT, I SWEAR TO GOD.

**smalltank** · 06-02-2012, 05:21 PM

rust, dark pitting=could be a full restore

**Kentos** · 06-02-2012, 05:45 PM

Bad pic is better than no pic. Just to back up a good story ;)

**tomjr** · 06-02-2012, 05:48 PM

pic's please!!

**RobAtSGH** · 06-02-2012, 06:47 PM

You guys are just razor-pervs!

Genco:

W&B:

Unfortunately, it looks like someone went at this with a scrubber or emory cloth:

Superfine steel wool took off the surface rust down to black patina without adding scrub marks. And that's probably the way it'll stay.

**RobAtSGH** · 06-02-2012, 06:53 PM

Originally Posted by hokahay

No I didn’t. Honest… I ran out of gas. I, I had a flat tire. I didn’t have enough money for cab fare. My tux didn’t come back from the cleaners. An old friend came in from out of town. Someone stole my car. There was an earthquake. A terrible flood. Locusts. IT WASN’T MY FAULT, I SWEAR TO GOD.

Oh, and here's the new AC install in my office, with the brick dust still waiting to get wiped off the wall:

Click image for larger version.

Name: DSC_2660.JPG
Views: 200
Size: 93.1 KB
ID: 248341

**Wid** · 06-02-2012, 06:56 PM

Very nice!!!

**Kentos** · 06-02-2012, 09:37 PM

Love that WB. The scales should polish up nicely too.

**Doc226** · 06-03-2012, 03:27 AM

Junk. Send to me for proper burial.

**Legion** · 06-03-2012, 03:31 AM

Originally Posted by hokahay

No I didn’t. Honest… I ran out of gas. I, I had a flat tire. I didn’t have enough money for cab fare. My tux didn’t come back from the cleaners. An old friend came in from out of town. Someone stole my car. There was an earthquake. A terrible flood. Locusts. IT WASN’T MY FAULT, I SWEAR TO GOD.

Nice, Jake.

**SinnerinRehab** · 06-03-2012, 02:44 PM

great score

**Krodor** · 06-03-2012, 04:22 PM

That there is some sweetness. Nice catch, and have fun with the restore! It'll be awesome to get them bad boys up and running again.

**RobAtSGH** · 06-03-2012, 06:53 PM

Well, I went at the Genco with some 0000 steel wool and Flitz to get rid of a couple of discolored spots, and it goes to the stones as soon as I get a workspace back. The W&B got another going over with both 00 and 0000 steel wool, and some Maas, and all the surface rust on the spine is now completely gone. There's very little pitting on the blade itself, and I managed to subdue most of the surface scratches left by whomever tried cleaning it before. Now, I'm just going to concentrate on getting a clean and bright edge on it.

**coloshaver** · 06-04-2012, 12:05 PM

Not to rain on your parade, but all my Gencos (8 so far

) have the Genco logo on the shank. Your Vanadium looks like a really nice razor - I'd take it in a minute, but I think you got a Genco box.

Click image for larger version.

Name: IMG_5470 resize.jpg
Views: 91
Size: 23.8 KB
ID: 248711

**RobAtSGH** · 06-04-2012, 02:03 PM

Originally Posted by coloshaver

Not to rain on your parade, but all my Gencos (8 so far

) have the Genco logo on the shank. Your Vanadium looks like a really nice razor - I'd take it in a minute, but I think you got a Genco box.

No rain here, I just didn't post a picture of the other side of the shank:

**coloshaver** · 06-06-2012, 03:13 PM

Excellent!

You'll love it. (Like I said, it looked nice!)

Interesting the logo is on opposite side. It is on the same side as your "Vanadium" marking on all 8 of mine. Just one of those unfathomables.

Shave on.

**RobAtSGH** · 06-06-2012, 06:53 PM

From what I've been able to find in online photos and scans of old catalogs, earlier versions had "Vanadium" in the ribbon running below the "Genco" logo instead of "Razors" (1929 catalog). Later on, it looks like they changed to stamping the model name on the obverse side of the blade and the generic Genco Razors logo on the reverse (30's production?).