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Two of a Kind: Cased Pair of Antique Straight Razors

 

When it comes to collecting, buying or selling antiques – one of the hardest things to shift – either towards you, or away from you – are things which come in sets.

Sets are larger, sets cost more, sets have pieces that go missing, sets take up more space, they weigh more, and postage and delivery costs go up as a result. But when you can find a set in great condition, you hold onto it!

This is why antique sets of…anything…are always so hard to find. If you find them, if you can find them, and they’re in fantastic condition, then they have gigantic price-tags. And if you find them, and the price is reasonable, then there’s almost certain to be some kind of strings attached.

This is why I jumped at the chance to secure this beautiful set of matched, antique straight razors, when I saw them for sale online.

Back in the days when the only way to get a decent shave was to master the use of a cutthroat razor, manufacturers went above and beyond to try and make the shaving experience as enjoyable as possible.

One way of doing this was to sell razors in sets – pairs, threes, fours, and if you could afford it, even full, seven-day weeklies. Handsomely presented in wooden boxes with fitted interiors lined in fabric, these sets were designed to entice men to take pride and enjoyment in the art of shaving. They were status-symbols, intended to make you want to use them – to take care of them – and to want to learn how to use them.

Today – such multi-razor sets are prized, and rare, antiques. To find a set in complete and functional condition with minimal wear or damage is becoming increasingly hard, and any such sets usually command high prices. I consider it nothing but great fortune to have landed this deal for under $150.00!

Multi-Razor Sets – Whys and Wherefores?

Multi-razor sets are a strange beast, a curious relic of a bygone age. When’s the last time you went out to buy a new razor, and got told by the salesman at the grooming-supplies store, that you had the option of buying razors in two, three, four, or even seven-piece sets of matching razors?

Never. That’s when. And yet, in an age when one straight razor was just as likely to do as good a job as two, or four, or seven, multi-razor sets were surprisingly common. Sold by department stores, famous manufacturers, and jewelry and luxury-merchandise retailers, sets containing multiple razors were often presented in handsome cases made of wood, covered in leather, swathed in velvet and silk, and with gold-leaf logos and company names stamped on the lids.

But why? Why bother? What’s the point of having more than one razor, when one razor will do just as good a job as two or more?

Multi-razor sets were popular in the Victorian era and the first half of the 20th century, because using a straight razor required considerably more skill than a modern cartridge razor, or even a double-edged safety razor. Straight razors took more skill to strop, and sharpen, and maintain overall. Because of this, having a set of multiple razors allowed you to spread out your shaves across multiple blades, thereby reducing wear on the blades, and by extension, reduce the number of times that it was necessary to sharpen a razor – not a skill that everybody was well-versed in (assuming that they even had the necessary equipment to carry out such a task).

Sharpening razors was done by your local barber, the man who was more likely to know everything about razor maintenance than anybody else in town. To avoid paying for his sharpening services too often, razors were simply rotated and stropped as often as possible, to avoid having to visit the barber. Only when the razors were so blunt that stropping alone wouldn’t return them to full sharpness, would the razors then be touched up again on a razor hone, to bring them up to working condition.

Cased razors require more scrutiny than most, since boxes and storage cases rarely survive intact.

Drawing out the times between sharpening periods was important for another reason, quite apart from cost: Blade wear.

Straight razors have very, very thin blades – thin enough to snap with your bare hands, if you’re not worried about slicing your fingers off, first – and because of this, the edges of the blades can get worn down very easily from excessive or incorrect sharpening. Razors which are over-zealously sharpened can suffer from “smiling” or “frowning”, where the edges (smiling) or the middle (frowning) of the blade-edge are so ground-down by abrasion that the physical blade starts to lose its shape – they aren’t called STRAIGHT razors for nothing, after all – if the blade isn’t straight, it can’t be sharpened. If it can’t be sharpened, it can’t be shaved with – you have a useless blade!

It was to prevent this from happening that people bought multi-razor sets – to cut down on the cost of sharpenings, and also to reduce their frequency to make the blades last as long as possible.

The final reason why multi-razor sets were so popular is because they were considered a status symbol. While anybody could buy two (or more) individual razors, and rotate them day by day or week by week to reduce blade-wear and sharpening, being able to buy a cased, matched set was something that was, in general – on a whole other level. The expense of making a custom case, of lining it in fabric and veneering it in leather, of adding in the fittings that would hold the razors in place, of adding in the hinges, catches, or even locks and keys, all entailed extra time, expense…and therefore – money.

If you were able to afford all that – even for a two-razor set – then it suggested that you were a person of means – a person who could afford a few of the finer things in life – and a person who could justify the expense of buying your own cased set.

Multi-Razor Sets: Buying and How-Tos

As I mentioned before, multi-razor sets don’t really exist these days. A handful of companies still make seven-day luxury sets, but these cost thousands upon thousands of dollars each, and it’s unlikely that most people interested in straight razor shaving would wish to spend that amount of money on such a set, unless it was a real, once-in-a-lifetime splurge.

So if you do want to own such a set, then the only way to get one is either to accumulate the razors yourself, and make the case or box at home (or commission somebody else to make it for you), or to buy one secondhand.

Let’s assume that you want to, and you do. What sorts of things do you need to be aware of?

I already covered most of the details about buying vintage or secondhand razors in my previous posting on razors (see “The Idiot’s Guide to Straight Razor Shaving” that I wrote a few weeks ago), so in this part of the posting, I’ll be discussing other things to keep an eye out for, besides the razors themselves.

Checking the Razors

The first thing you want to do is to check the razors themselves. Now I already covered most of this previously (see the link, above), so I won’t go into it in amazing detail – but suffice to say – you want to be sure that all the razors in the set are identical, and that they are all in functional condition, or can be restored to functional condition.

Blades should be clean, undamaged, and without heavy rusting.

This is one of the biggest pitfalls when it comes to buying antique razor sets like this – all it takes is one TINY blemish – one crack, one chip, or one set of broken scales – to completely ruin an otherwise pristine set. Once one of those razors is damaged and can’t be repaired, the set loses all its value! Nobody will want it because they can’t use it as intended, and because of that, regardless of how cheap the set is, it’s pointless trying to buy it.

This isn’t something that you want to find out AFTER you’ve bought a set, so make sure you check every single razor with microscopic precision, before dropping any money. Light surface-rust and minor scuffs and damage can be repaired, but major issues like cracked, split or chipped blades, heavy rust that goes deep into the steel, or major damage to the box are all things which are irreparable – the set is now worthless. Don’t buy one of those.

Checking the Box

Assuming that the razors are matched, and functional, without major defects, the next thing to examine is the box, or case which the razors come in. Check for any cracks, major blemishes, broken hinges, broken locks or clasps, damaged fittings, excessive wear or rubbing, split leather, major stains or other damage to the interior linings.

Some of these things can be repaired. Missing keys can be found, or re-cut. Hinges can be tightened and you can find new screws for that. Depending on how original you want the box to be, new fabric for lining the interiors can also be sourced (at the sacrifice of any gold-leaf printing inside the lid), and wooden surfaces can be sanded and re-stained to bring back the shine in the wood.

Brass or other metal fittings such as escutcheons, hinges, lock-plates etc, can be polished or replaced. The leather surfacing can be re-polished with an appropriate leather-polishing wax or stain, and gold edging can be retouched to an extent, with things like gold paint of the right hue (or if you really want to do it properly, you can get actual gold-leaf and do it that way).

A clean, unblemished interior.

While examining any prospective purchase, you need to decide just how much imperfection you’re prepared to tolerate, or how far your repair and restoration skills will stretch. The more you’re willing to compromise, the more sets will become available to you. Finding perfect or near-perfect sets for reasonable prices is very difficult – they’re getting increasingly rare, and the sets which are leftover are often more trouble to restore than they’re worth.

So, What about This Set, Then?

Isn’t it neat?? I picked this up on eBay about a month ago (what with our friend Coronavirus staying around for the foreseeable future, the parcel took forever to get here), and it’s something that I’ve always wanted to add to my collection: An antique, cased pair of matching straight razors!

What is it all Made Of?

This particular set features a wooden case or box, lined with red leather on the outside, bordered in gold leaf, with an interior of blue silk and velvet. The lid also features a nickel silver cartouche in the middle, where the owner’s initials or a date or some-such thing, could be engraved, if desired – a feature which bespeaks the set’s intended role as a gift, or as a significant purchase.

The razors themselves are made of carbon steel, with the original owner’s initials engraved on the blades, and which possess scales made of celluloid plastic. The original eBay listing identified them as bone, but a close look reveals the faux-ivory ‘grain’ pattern, that is so common to so many early celluloid-scaled razors.

Restorations and Repairs

The set didn’t really need much work, once I’d gotten my hands on it – one of the main reasons I bought it. Apart from some polish to hide some marks and bring a bit of colour back to the leather, a bit of metal polishing to the hardware, checking the razors for rust, and then giving them a thorough sharpening, there really wasn’t much to do.

Restoring the finish was largely a matter of rubbing red leather polish in, to bring back the original colour and restore any fading or colour-loss.

All in all, the set was in excellent condition, barring some minor touch-ups, cleaning and general maintenance. A worthwhile purchase which will only ever increase in value.

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Luxury Sterling Silver Toothpick

 

If ever two words were more opposite to each other, I don’t think you could find a pair more perfect than ‘toothpick’…and…’luxury’.

But here we are.

I have dared to put these two into the same sentence, and it has been done.

Toothpicks have been used for thousands of years for cleaning teeth, picking out stuck food, gunk, grime, or for scraping away at the enamel surfacing to remove hardened plaque or other detritus. In an age before particularly sophisticated (or comfortable) dental care was available, keeping one’s teeth clean with a toothpick was one of the most important things ever! Abscesses, receding, or inflamed guns, and the sheer discomfort of stuck food or tooth decay, were big motivators for keeping one’s mouth (and teeth) as clean as possible at all times.

Precious Metal Toothpicks

Toothpicks made out of metal have been in use for centuries, and ranged from simple copper, bronze or brass ones, to expensive luxury models, such as those made from silver, or from (usually low karat) solid gold. In an age when plentiful food and good nutrition was much rarer than it is nowadays, using a silver or gold toothpick to clean your mouth after a meal was a sign of wealth and extravagance – the fact that you needed to use such a thing indicated wealth, and the fact that it was made of silver or gold only enforced this fact to anybody watching.

Precious metal toothpicks in gold or silver were common in many cultures around the world, and examples have been found which were made in the United Kingdom, Australia, and several countries in Asia, where using toothpicks is much more common overall, than it tends to be in European countries.

In both Europe, and Asia, silver and gold toothpicks were a common accessory. Usually, such toothpicks were housed in cylindrical metal storage tubes, and could be slid in or out upon the demand for use. They were usually affixed to the user’s clothing, or hung around the neck, using a chain or necklace, or else clipped to another piece of jewelry – such as on the end of a pocketwatch chain.

Such retractable toothpicks became increasingly popular in the 1700s and 1800s, when grooming and personal presentation were taken very seriously, and when professional dental care left much to be desired. Numerous silversmiths and goldsmiths all over the world made toothpicks for sale the public – usually out of high-grade silver (800, 900 or 925 sterling), or else, out of lower-grade gold (usually 9kt), owing to the soft nature of gold, which had to be heavily alloyed with copper so that it would be strong enough to be made into something as thin and small as a toothpick, without snapping or breaking while being used.

I picked up this particular toothpick at my local flea-market. There wasn’t much information, except a card that said: “STERLING SILVER TOOTHPICK”, and a price ($5.00). I have no idea how old it is, but going by the “STG SIL” mark on the end of the shaft, I’d say that it was Australian-made (STG SIL is a common, generic Australian silver mark, standing for “STERLING SILVER”).

The pick is square cross-sectioned, with a sharp, pyramidal point, a twisted shaft, and a flat, spatula’d end with the fineness punched into it. It’s 2-3/4 inches long, and is by far the smallest antique I have ever purchased!

For the person who has everything – you can still buy sterling silver toothpicks today. They might be the perfect “green” solution for you, if you’re looking for a portable and discrete way to clean your teeth while out and about, and don’t want to use wooden toothpicks, plastic ones, or miles and miles of dental-floss. A number of online retailers sell them and if nothing else, it’ll definitely be a conversation-piece at your next dinner engagement!…but perhaps just display it, rather than demonstrate it!

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The Long Way Back: The Farthest Flight of the Pacific Clipper

 

Imagine this – It’s December! You’ve booked yourself an international flight to the Far East to enjoy a balmy, sandy Christmas in the sun! You board the plane and take off across the Pacific headed for Southeast Asia, and settle in for several hours of relaxation, conversation and sightseeing over the ocean.

Before you’ve even reached your destination – your entire world is turned upside-down! Reports come in over the radio that suddenly, the whole world is at war! You can’t fly back, you can’t go on ahead, you have no idea where the plane is even going to land, and you could be shot down at any minute!

This is the terrifying tale of the Pacific Clipper, one of the long-haul luxury passenger seaplanes operated by Pan-American Airways in the 1930s and 40s, and the record-breaking flight that it took around the world in December, 1941, as the South Pacific exploded into war beneath its wings.

What Was the Pacific Clipper?

Introduced in 1938, the Boeing 314 Clipper was, in the late 1930s, the most modern of commercial, long-haul passenger aircraft being sold around the world at the time. Only twelve were ever constructed. Nine went to Pan-American Airways, and the remaining three went to BOAC – the British Overseas Airways Corporation.

The Boeing 314 was a large aircraft for the day, but even it wasn’t able to cover the entire width of the Pacific Ocean in a single, uninterrupted flight. Instead, the accepted practice of the day was to “island-hop” around the world, providing long-distance travel to the paying public by flying from one airbase to another, completing long-haul flights in stages. It wasn’t fast, and it wasn’t exactly glamorous, and it certainly wasn’t cheap!…But it beat the hell out of trying to cover the same distance by ocean liner!

PAA’s ‘California Clipper’ in 1940

The Pan-Am clippers came with most of the stuff that modern aircraft come with: Lavatories, seats that could convert to lie-flat beds, delicious food, and full steward service! However, they differed in many other ways:

First – journey-times were much longer. From California to Hawaii took up to 19 hours! Second – Passenger-volumes were much-reduced – The average pre-war Pan-Am clipper barely carried more than 70 passengers. Third – the Pan-Am clippers were all seaplanes, or “flying boats” – they had no landing-gear – instead, the planes took off and landed on flat bodies of water – large rivers, lakes, or along the coastline during calm weather.

Last but not least – tickets were expensive! A one-way flight from California to Hong Kong was $760 – around $14,000USD in modern prices!

Piloting a Pan-Am clipper was very different from flying a modern aircraft. Because the planes could only take off and land on water, pilots had to be extremely skilled, not only in flying, landing, taxiing and take-off – but they also had to know a lot more about weather, sea-conditions, how to spot a safe stretch of water, and how to read the windspeeds and directions accurately enough to know when, where and how to make a safe water-landing! These days, most pilots hope to only make one water-landing in their entire lives, if they ever have to – but for Pan-Am clipper pilots, it was literally a daily occurrence!

In an age when long-haul passenger-flights were limited and the industry was only, quite literally, getting off the ground – flying was far more dangerous than it is today. Engine-failures and emergency-landings happened much more frequently, and a full-service crew flew with the aircraft at all times to tackle all kinds of mechanical incidents that could happen during flight. The crew of the Boeing 314 Flying Boat was 11 in number: The captain, first officer, second officer, third officer, fourth officer, two flight-engineers, two radio-operators, the purser, and his assistant.

It was one of these fantastical flying machines – a Boeing 314 – which came to be known as the ‘Pacific Clipper’.

Pan-American Airways named all its early aircraft, just like how steamship-lines at the time named all their ships. And just like how shipping lines followed naming conventions (Cunard named all ships “-ia” – Carpathia, Lusitania, Muretania, Berengaria, etc, and White Star named all their ships “-ic” – Titanic, Olympic, Atlantic, etc), Pan-Am also followed similar conventions: All their aircraft were called “clippers”, a reference to clipper sailing ships, which were famed for their speed. The names were typically related to the plane’s assigned route.

There was the Atlantic Clipper, the China Clipper, the Caribbean Clipper, the Honolulu Clipper…and the subject of this posting: The Pacific Clipper.

The Farthest Flight of the Pacific Clipper

It is December 2nd, 1941. Off the coast of sunny San Francisco, the Pacific Clipper is preparing for a routine flight across the Pacific towards Auckland, New Zealand. There are twenty-three people on board: Twelve passengers, and eleven crew. The pilot is Capt. Robert Ford, a Pan-Am veteran, well-used to the rigors of long-haul passenger-aircraft flights.

With a range of 5,000 miles, the Pacific Clipper was never able to make the flight from California to New Zealand nonstop, and it was accepted that the plane would land several times during the trip to drop off and collect mail, passengers, food, drinks, trash, and most importantly – fuel! When Captain Ford fired up the engines and took to the skies, nobody on board could’ve imagined what lay ahead.

Pre-war Honolulu in the 1930s

The aircraft’s first stop was San Pedro, California, then out across the ocean. It landed in Honolulu, Hawaii, then Kanton Island near Kiribati, then Fiji, and then finally, New Caledonia. In the preceding days, it had covered over 6,000 miles! The final leg of the journey was still ahead: Auckland, a mere 1,200 miles away – well within the limits of the Pacific Clipper’s operational range.

As the plane took off from New Caledonia and flew southeast towards Auckland, wireless operator John Poindexter was relaxing at his station, his headphones strapped onto his head as the aircraft hummed around him. Right now, he was probably thinking about his wife – the same wife that he had advised, he would be home early for – and to keep dinner for him on the kitchen table.

That was before one of the two radio-operators on the flight pulled out sick, and Poindexter stepped in to replace him. Had he known what was about to happen, Poindexter would’ve told his wife not to bother about dinner, because he was going to be home late.

Very late.

Halfway through their current leg, the radio suddenly crackled to life, and Poindexter scribbled down a message in Morse Code. Ripping it off his pad, he hurried to tell the rest of the crew what had just come in over the airwaves.

It was December 7th, 1941. A date which would live in infamy. Poindexter had just found out about the Japanese aerial attack on Pearl Harbor in Hawaii.

As the pilot, his co-pilot, the stewards, navigator, flight engineers and radio-operators all looked at the message, they suddenly realised what a horrible position they were all in!

While they could safely make it to New Zealand, offload their passengers, cargo and mail, refuel and take-off again – it was immediately obvious that there was no way that they could ever go home…or at least…not in the conventional way.

Under normal circumstances, the plane would’ve flown northeast towards Hawaii, where it would land, refuel, and then continue on back to the mainland United States. With Japanese aircraft, warships and aircraft carriers between the South Pacific and Hawaii, however, such a route was impossible – an aircraft bearing American markings would almost certainly be shot out of the sky if it was discovered by Japanese surface vessels.

With Hawaii on high alert, landing and refueling there, even if they managed to evade the Japanese, would be next to impossible. Unable to make the journey back to California without at least one stopover, getting back home seemed impossible!

Landing in New Zealand

The first leg of this epic adventure was relatively easy – landing. Two hours after receiving the world-changing news that the naval base at Pearl Harbor had been blasted by the Japanese, Captain Ford and his crew executed a landing off the coast of New Zealand, taxiing up to Auckland and tying off. Passengers and cargo were offloaded and the plane was prepared for…well…they weren’t exactly sure what for…but they wanted to be prepared at the very least!

Unsure of what else to do, the crew made their way to the American Embassy in Auckland. Here, they managed to contact Pan-American Airways Headquarters…in New York…and waited for further instructions.

With facilities in Hawaii put out of action, the harbor inoperable and any aircraft-fuel being needed for military aircraft, flying back to California was all but impossible.

In the week that it took for headquarters to make up its mind on the crew’s next move, the Pacific was erupting into war around them. The Philippine Clipper at Wake Island had managed to evacuate all Pan-Am employees and a lucky few civilians, taking to the air as Japanese forces rolled in, riddling the aircraft with gunfire as it fought to get out of range. In Hong Kong, another Pan-Am flying boat had been blown up at its dock before it even had a chance to leave.

Knowing that time was running out and that their options were dwindling rapidly, it was eight days before Captain Ford and his crew found out what they were expected to do.

Finally, on the 15th of December, a cypher-telegram was dispatched from New York to the U.S. Embassy, Auckland, New Zealand. It instructed Captain Ford to strip the Pacific Clipper of all identifying marks, fuel-up, and to get home by whatever means were necessary. During the trip, radio silence was to be observed at all times, to prevent the aircraft from being detected by the Japanese, and to land in New York when it arrived back in American waters.

When he found out what he was expected to do, Captain Ford probably thought that it would’ve been better if he’d kept his mouth shut! There was no way the aircraft could fly that far without stopping several times for fuel. There was no way that they’d have enough food, equipment or supplies to last that long! They didn’t even have any money, and because Captain Ford only flew the Pacific routes – he had no maps or navigational charts to guide him across Eurasia, Africa, or the Atlantic Ocean! They were entirely on their own, with orders to make it home by any means necessary.

After refueling the aircraft, Ford and his passengers and crew took off once more, to an uncertain fate.

It was the 16th of December when they left New Zealand, and their first stop was one of their previous legs – New Caledonia. Here, Ford had been ordered to land, refuel, and take on evacuees – the staff of the Pan-Am facility that operated out of the New Caledonian capital – Noumea. Fearing that the island could be captured by the Japanese at any minute, Ford told the Pan-Am staff that they had exactly one hour to grab whatever they could, and flee. This wouldn’t be easy – each passenger was only allowed one bag each!

While the Pan-Am staff scrambled to pack their bags and secure their essentials, the plane was refueled. With everybody safely aboard, the plane took off once more, this time flying west.

The only other major landmass in the region that had not yet been taken by the Japanese was the Commonwealth of Australia – the Pacific Clipper’s next stop. It landed off the Queensland coast near the town of Gladstone, where once again – it started to refuel. While the ground-staff prepared the clipper for its next leg, the crew offloaded the Pan-Am employees from Noumea, judging Australia to be far enough away from Japanese aggression to be a safe evacuation-point.

While this was going on, Ford had to tackle another issue that hadn’t been an issue before last week!…money!

With each flight, the crew was provided with enough funds to cover their expenditures – food, fuel, and any necessary repairs – from California to New Zealand…but Pan-Am in New York had not been able to send them any extra funds for their long-haul flight around the world!

Wondering what to do, Captain Ford was suddenly approached by a young man, who identified himself as a local banker. The aircraft had enough food and fuel to last the trip – but what about money?

“We’re broke!” Ford recalled saying, and explained how they had only been given enough funds to support them there and back – not for halfway around the world!

“I’ll probably be shot for this”, the banker replied, but he went to his local branch, unlocked the vault in the back, and returned with $500 cash-money – American dollars! A not-inconsiderable sum in 1941!

Accepting the cash without another word, Ford handed it to Rod Brown, the aircraft’s navigator – the only person on board with access to the plane’s strongbox. The funds were deposited, and the aircraft prepared to take flight again.

Darwin in the 1930s. A sight like this would’ve been very similar to what the crew of the Pacific Clipper would’ve seen when they landed in the harbour on the 17th of December, 1941

The Pacific Clipper continued its journey westwards, flying across the Australian interior. Being a seaplane, the Pacific Clipper could only take off or land on water – and Australia being one of the driest countries on earth – there ain’t much water around! Certainly not enough to land a commercial aircraft in!

The afternoon of the 17th saw the Pacific Clipper landing in Darwin, the capital of Australia’s Northern Territory. The weather was atrocious and the plane came down in the midst of a tropical thunderstorm. Although it was the capital of the Northern Territory, Darwin was hardly a bustling metropolis! The crew were stunned to discover just how small Darwin was – little more than a large, country town. Even in 2020, Darwin’s population is still barely 150,000 people!

Darwin in the 1930s.

Despite this, Darwin was still an important military base, with an airfield, army-base, aircraft facilities, and a naval base in the deep-water harbour nearby. Darwin was such an army town that the crew found that their refreshment station was actually the local brothel!

While in Darwin, Captain Ford and his navigator, Rod Brown, had to decide what on earth they were going to do next. Australia was likely to be the last friendly nation that they would be able to land in, before they had to strike out on their own and try and make it home across the rest of the world. There would be no way to know where they could land, find fuel, repair the engines if they malfunctioned, could receive medical care, or even communicate with Pan-Am headquarters in New York, if they had to!

Leaving Australia…

After freshening up, the crew had to refuel the aircraft…again. 5,000 gallons of aircraft fuel had to be poured into the tanks before they could take off – not with pumps or hoses or anything as sophisticated as that!…Oh no.

It had to be done by hand.

1,000 5gal. jerry-cans of fuel had to be literally manhandled up the side of the aircraft and poured into the tanks over the wings, passed down, refilled, and then passed back up again! All this in the raging North-Australian heat! It was past midnight before the job was done, and the crew were exhausted! They allowed themselves a few hours’ sleep, and then took off again the moment it was light.

Lifting off from Darwin on the morning of the 18th, Captain Ford and his crew flew north to Surabaya in Java, then part of the Dutch East Indies.

Desperate to hold the island by any means necessary, British and Dutch forces were understandably on-edge when they saw an unidentified aircraft entering Javan airspace. Unable to make radio-contact, the Pacific Clipper was almost taken out by friendly fire! When it finally was allowed to land – the local authorities refused to give them any aircraft fuel! They insisted that their limited stock was for military uses only – but – they didn’t want to be seen as being unsympathetic – there was a war on, after all!…and they graciously informed Captain Ford that he was welcome to help himself to as much gasoline as he could load onto the aircraft! It’s not like anybody was going for a relaxing, Sunday drive right now, so there was more than enough petrol to spare! Even enough to fuel a commercial airliner!

The lower-quality automobile fuel had never been used in an airplane before, and Ford was skeptical about whether it would even operate properly at high altitudes! But he had no choice – it was either take the lower-grade fuel – or run out of fuel entirely, and crash in the ocean!

Erring on the side of caution, Ford ordered his flight engineers to siphon the remaining aircraft fuel into one tank, and fill the other tanks with the lower-grade gasoline. The plane would take off using aircraft fuel, but would carry out the next leg of its journey using the automobile fuel.

Once the plane was airborne, Ford switched the feed-valves on the tanks, shutting off the aviation fuel and switching on the pumps for the lower-grade petrol – the engines gurgled and spluttered and smoke started pumping out, but once they’d gotten over the initial shock of the change in their diet – they started firing once more.

Chasing the Sunset

Determined to put as much space between himself and the Japanese as possible, Captain Ford steered the Pacific Clipper westwards, and out across the Indian Ocean, and over waters which were, quite literally – uncharted! With no detailed maps, Ford, his navigator, co-pilot and the aircraft’s stewards were basically flying blind, only having the vaguest idea of where they were going. Navigator Brown had no navigational documents for this part of the world, and warned Ford that all they had to go on were rough bearings.

Ford decided that their next logical destination had to be a colony of the British Empire – somewhere that the Pacific Clipper would stand a greater chance of a friendly reception. To that end, the plane attempted to find the island of Ceylon – today – Sri Lanka – off the Indian coast.

Had they been traveling by sea, this would’ve been called an “all-red route” – a sea voyage which stopped only in “red” parts of the map – red being the colour of the British Empire. As they flew on, the crew of the Pacific Clipper encountered heavy cloud-cover. Unable to determine his position, Ford dropped the plane below the clouds to get his bearings – a decision he would immediately regret!

As he broke cloud-cover, Ford got the shock of his life when a Japanese submarine appeared below! The Japanese started manning their deck-guns and began firing at the Pacific Clipper and Ford had to quickly manipulate the controls to bring the aircraft back up into the clouds!

Sustaining no damage from the Japanese attack, the Pacific Clipper finally landed in Ceylon and the crew were welcomed by the local British military garrison, where they were invited to a meeting to give them whatever intelligence they could regarding the current state of the South Pacific.

After the aircraft had been refueled, it took off once more. It was now the 24th of December – Christmas Eve, and Captain Ford was about to get a very nasty Christmas present! They had barely flown more than a handful of miles when an explosion in one of the starboard engines made everybody jump! Peering out the window, Ford and his co-pilot were stunned to see smoke and oil gurgling from the #3 engine! Ford shut the engine down and spun the plane around back to Ceylon!

When they landed, Ford pulled the engine coverings off and discovered that one of the 18 cylinders had ruptured and worked itself loose from its mounting, causing the oil to leak out. Repairing the loosened mounting was not difficult…but it did take a long time, and it was Boxing Day before the plane could take off again.

Deciding to stick with their “British-Empire” strategy, Ford and his crew headed for Karachi, then part of British India (today part of Pakistan), and from there to the Kingdom of Bahrain, at the time, a British protectorate.

So far, so good.

Arriving in Bahrain, the crew once again made contact with the British military authorities stationed there, explained their situation, and their onward plans. Captain Ford was warned to avoid flying over Saudi-Arabia if at all possible, due to the potentially hostile reception he might receive – more than a few British aircraft had been shot down over Arabian airspace, and while the Pacific Clipper had, by this time, been stripped of all its identifying marks to avoid enemy attention, there was still a good chance that an unmarked, un-identifiable aircraft might still be targeted by hostile forces.

The Pacific Clipper in flight

Captain Ford provisioned and refueled his plane, and they took off again. With fuel a precious commodity, Ford wasn’t in any position to take a ‘scenic route’ back to America, and so, ended up flying across Saudi-Arabia anyway! To protect against gunfire, the clipper remained in the clouds for the majority of the leg, only dipping down to check their bearings every few miles. They’d been in the air about 20 minutes when Ford took the plane down to check their progress. The crew got the shock of their lives when they realised that they were flying right across central Mecca! Fortunately, anti-aircraft installations did not exist in Mecca, and the Pacific Clipper flew on, unmolested.

The aircraft’s next stop was Khartoum, the capital of the Sudan. Landing on the famous River Nile, Captain Ford and his crew were greeted by representatives of the British Royal Air Force, who helped them refuel the Pacific Clipper, provision it for the next leg of its epic journey, and wished them godspeed.

Exactly where to go next was a bit of a challenge. Flying to Europe was dangerous at best, unwise at worst. While they could probably head to somewhere like Gibraltar, Ford feared that the clipper’s engines, already taxed to breaking-point, would not survive the heat of the Sahara Desert – a forced landing there would be a death-sentence to everybody! This also meant that places like Casablanca, Spain or Portugal were out of range.

Instead, the crew decided to fly to Leopoldville in the Belgian Congo – it would at least be further west, and would take them one step closer to home.

Landing on the river near Leopoldville, the plane was tied up at a jetty and the crew disembarked for their next rest-stop. Upon their arrival in town, they received the shock of their lives! Two Pan-Am employees – an airport manager, and a radio-operator – greeted them! Relieved to see colleagues again, the crew relaxed, had a meal, exchanged news…and thanks to the two Leopoldville employees – enjoyed something that none of the Pacific Clipper crew had had, probably since leaving Australia – a nice, cold beer!

The crew rested in Leopoldville overnight while they planned the next leg of their journey. They also refueled the aircraft and prepared it for the next day’s flying – in fact, they prepared it so well, that come dawn, the plane was almost too heavy to take off! With tanks full of fuel and oil, cargo and crew, and with the soggy, humid air of the equator all around them, the Pacific Clipper narrowly avoided plunging off the edge of a waterfall as it lurched ungainly into the air once more!

The Atlantic Crossing

The next leg was one of the most dangerous – flying across the Atlantic to South America – a journey that took them nearly all day and night! When they finally landed in Natal on the Brazilian coastline, port authorities insisted that the aircraft – by then looking very battered, worn-out and worse-for-wear, due to it serving as the home for the ten crew-members for the past month – had to be fumigated for mosquitoes, which could carry deadly yellow fever. The crew disembarked the plane and started planning the next part of their journey while a team of fumigators boarded the aircraft and got to work.

And boy, did they ever! When Captain Ford and his colleagues returned, the ‘fumigators’ had robbed them blind! Anything that wasn’t nailed down had been stripped off the aircraft! All their personal papers, most of their charts, maps, travel-documents, company papers, and most of their money had been stolen!…a fact they only discovered once they had already left Brazilian airspace!

Finally back in the Americas and in familiar skies once more, Captain Ford flew towards the Port of Spain, the capital of Trinidad & Tobago. This was the first place they’d landed in since leaving New Caledonia a month before, that had actual Pan-Am facilities, and Ford was relieved to be among friendly faces once more. The next leg was the last one – the final flight home to New York!

Captain Ford and his colleagues were so eager to get home that they took off almost immediately. It was now the 5th of January, and New York was just a short jaunt away. They left Trinidad so early that when they arrived in New York, it wasn’t even daylight yet! As a result, when Captain Ford contacted La Guardia Airport Air-Traffic Control with the words: “This is the Pacific Clipper, inbound from Auckland, New Zealand! Overhead in five minutes!”, the air-traffic controller called back that the Pacific Clipper was not allowed to land!…for 50 minutes. Only when the sun rose near 7:00am, did the plane finally touch down in American waters once more!

The incredible journey of the Pacific Clipper

In the end, Captain Ford had made history! And in so many ways! Let’s count them, shall we?

The first-ever round-the-world flight by a commercial airliner.

The longest continuous flight made by a commercial airliner.

The first circumnavigation of the world by following the equator.

The longest nonstop flight in the entire history of Pan-American World Airways: 3,583 miles from Leopoldville to Natal.

In the nearly four weeks it took them to get home, Ford and his crew had visited twelve nations on five continents, and had made eighteen landings! They had also made incredible history!

The Pacific Clipper on its arrival at La Guardia Airport, New York. 6th of January, 1942

Want to read more?

Sources included…

The History Guy YouTube Channel.

The Pan-Am Historical Foundation website.

The Navy Times website.

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Restoring a 1920s Retractable Razor Strop

 

Back when straight razors were still the predominant method for carrying out the daily shave, a wide variety of accessories and nicknacks were invented to go along with them.

Just like how nowadays you have suction-cup stands for your smartphones, or bendy-bendy-all-adjustable tripods and selfie-sticks for all your photographic social-media needs, or how companies are now trying to sell you all kinds of groomers, trimmers and motorised hedgeclippers to trim literally every part of your body that you can reach (and even some which you probably can’t!), back at the turn of the 20th century, all kinds of manufacturers were cranking out an equally wide variety of gizmos that claimed to make your grooming routine oh-so-much-easier!

From specialist sharpening stones to razor-kits, reusable blades and shaving sticks, all kinds of accessories were available from any number of magazines, catalogs and specialist suppliers. One of the most common accessories – especially popular among the well-groomed traveling gentlemen of the world – was the retractable razor strop.

Strops – the long, wide strips of leather used to smooth off and realign the edges of the blades on cutthroat razors – had to be as smooth and as flat as possible. Folding, bending or creasing the strop in any way while traveling would cause excessive wrinkles, kinks or deformity to the leather, which would render it useless as a strop. Because strops had to be kept smooth and flat, they could take up a lot of space when traveling. However – there was nothing against rolling up a strop – simply rolling a strop up wouldn’t cause creases or fold-lines that a razor-blade could trip over – which made it the ideal way to package a strop small enough to the portable, without compromising its structural integrity.

The only thing was – there had to be a way to easily roll and unroll the strop each time it was used. In the end, a simple coiled-spring retractable mechanism was created, and housed inside a metal barrel or casing. One end of the strop was attached to the spring-barrel inside the casing, and the other end of the strop trailed out of the mouth of the casing. The remaining leather was coiled up inside the casing, and wrapped around the barrel. Pulling the strop out for use would cause the spring inside the casing to tighten up, and letting go of the strop would make the spring relax, spinning backwards and pulling the strop back inside the storage case.

Simple, and effective.

So effective that several of these retractable strops were manufactured and sold to the public! What had once been a strip of leather over a foot in length and two to three inches in width, was now little more than a rolled-up leather strap, tucked into a metal casing smaller than a soda-can! So simple, so robust, and so convenient!

The majority of these retractable razor strops were housed in cases made of nickel-silver, or silver-plated pewter, or some other variety of cheap, white metal, presumably to keep costs down. The one which I bought online differs from all these greatly, in that the outer casing is made entirely of sterling silver – and has all the hallmarks to prove it!

I have seen several of the silver-plated ones, but never one which was made of solid sterling silver before. After winning it at auction

Pulling Apart the Strop

The original leather that comprised the main component of the strop was completely un-salvageable. It was dry, cracked, torn, brittle and covered in grime. No amount of beeswax and polishing was ever going to restore it.

The first step was to remove this. To do that, I unscrewed the strop-casing, starting with the large bolt that goes right through the body of the casing. After unscrewing it, I pulled it out, and broke the casing open into its three main components: The barrel, and the two end-discs.

Inside the barrel was the strop, and the winding cylinder, all held together by two end-caps.

The strop with the new leather.

I pulled these out and then removed the spring that activated the recoil-mechanism. The final step was to remove the actual leather from inside the cylinder. The leather is simply held in place by friction, and three triangular claws that hold the leather in place. I ended up just cutting the leather out using my pocketknife and pulling it out with tweezers.

I used the original leather as a template, from which to cut a strip of fresh leather of the same dimensions, from some scrap leather of the same thickness and similar finish.

The next step was to fit this into the winding cylinder, and fit the three claws in place, to stop the leather sliding out. After that, the spring was put back inside, the end-caps slid on, and then the leather was simply rolled up around the cylinder.

After that, the cylinder, spring and leather were dropped into the barrel, and the end-discs were fitted back on. I fed some of the leather out of the mouth of the barrel, and then started screwing the bolt back on. This proved to be surprisingly tricky and took a few tries to get right – but the threads finally meshed and the whole thing was screwed back together.

The final step was to cut and sew a new pull-strap to put onto the end of the strop, polish up the metal to remove the worst of the tarnish, and then hang it up in my bathroom. All done!

The hallmarks on the silver casing reveal that the strop was made in Birmingham, in 1924. For something that’s nearly 100 years old, it works surprisingly well!

The spring is perhaps not as elastic as it once was, but the results speak for themselves…

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Restoring an Antique Ivory Straight-Razor

 

Sometimes, you buy stuff secondhand, at auctions, at flea-markets, from collectors’ fairs, and you look at it, and think:

“Gee, it’s nice!…Pity it doesn’t work…”

That was the situation I found myself in when last year, I bought a very nice, antique straight razor with ivory scales. The scales were in decent condition…but the same could not be said for the blade housed within them. Ground almost into nonexistence, and as blunt as the flat side of an axe, no amount of a makeover was ever going to revive the career of this blade…which was a shame, because razors with ivory scales are beautiful..and hard to find.

The good news is that straight razors are very simply constructed, and I was certain that with the right equipment and tools, it would be possible to remove the worn out blade, find another blade from another, trashed razor, and replace it.

Fortunately, cheap, broken razors are all over the place, and earlier this year, I stumbled across a perfect candidate for my project at my local flea-market. For $5.00, I nabbed up a square-point BENGALL in excellent condition…bar the fact that the scales…which I judged to be some kind of celluloid…were literally crumbling to dust.

I tore the broken scales off with pliers, and using a file, I ground off the flange around the top of the pivot pin. I popped out the washer, pulled the whole pin and all the other washers out of the scales, threw the scales away, and started in on the blade, polishing away all the rust and staining – once I installed this blade in the new scales, this would be impossible to do, so it had to be done now.

The next step was more delicate: Removing the worn out blade from the ivory scales:

I taped the ivory, and then set in with a file to grind down as much metal as possible. I peeled off the now paper-thin washer that held the pin in place, and with a punch and hammer, I drove the pin out through the scales and blade. This loosened everything up enough to swivel the scale out of the way, drop the pin out, and remove the blade, all at once.

Unfortunately, the ivory, being as old as it is, was more fragile than I had anticipated…which is saying a lot, because the ivory was already wafer-thin and delicate as hell! As I half-expected, the ivory split across the holes drilled for the pins. Apparently, restoring this razor was going to be a bit more challenging than I had first hoped.

Simply gluing the ivory back together would never work – it would have to be reinforced. I found the thinnest strips of steel sheeting that I could find – barely thicker than tin-foil – and cut out rectangular strips which I could use to glue the ivory onto, and then glue that back onto the main body of the scales.

One benefit of the steel strips being so thin is that they’re very easy to cut with ordinary scissors – or fold, or tear…or even punch holes in! So I punched two holes in the strips so that they could still hold the ivory together, while having somewhere for the pin to go through.

I glued everything back together and left it overnight to set. The next step was relatively easy: Putting the razor back together, with the working, replacement blade.

To prevent wear, friction and jamming, razor-blades are inserted into straight razors very carefully in the following manner:

First: A washer or collar goes onto the pin. The head of the pin is “peened” or hammered flat so that it flares out at the end – this stops the collar from dropping off.

Next, the collared pin is fed through one hole in the scales. Another washer is dropped in on the other side, so that the scale is sandwiched between two washers. The razor blade is then dropped in on top of this, and a third washer is added on top of that. This means that the razor is always sliding against smooth metal – not against the body of the scales, which could damage them, cause friction, or jamming.

The other half of the scales is fed onto the pin through another pin-hole, and then a fourth washer is popped in on top of that, when the pin comes out the other side.

So far, so good. I set it all up and left it to dry overnight.

In the morning when the epoxy glue had hardened and the steel strips and ivory had all been bound firmly to the body of the scales which they had broken off from, it was time to do the last step of the reassembly process: Affixing the blade permanently to the scales.

Traditionally, this is done by filing down the head of the pin until it isn’t more than two or three milimeters above the top of the scale. With the collar or washer in place to provide protection, the head of the pin is – once again – peened over.

This is where I really was rather worried – peening the pin would mean putting the razor on my jeweler’s anvil, lining it up, and then belting the top of the pin with my ballpeen hammer to flatten out the head and mushroom the edge over the hole and washer, to keep everything in place.

Normally, this is easy – hold it still – and literally hit the nail on the head. Or it would be easy, if I wasn’t trying to fix a razor with fragile, brittle, antique ivory scales…

I had serious misgivings about whether the ivory would be able to withstand the shock of the hammer-strikes, but in the end, my fears were unfounded. That said – peening the top of the pin enough to hold the razor together, and stop the collar from popping out – took considerably more effort than I had anticipated – and I was hammering away at it for quite a while!

In the end, the results speak for themselves. The final touches were a bit of filing and sanding to clean up the glue and ivory, and of course – a very, very thorough honing and sharpening, to get the blade back up to snuff…

The results aren’t perfect, but the razor is intact, functional, elegant, and has a rustic, vintage charm to it. The razor swings smoothly on the pin and the scales have held together admirably, considering what’s been done to them. The blade opens and closes flawlessly, and is perfectly centered, preventing any possibility of the edge of the blade striking the scales – which is a huge pain in the ass, because it would indicate manufacturing faults – none of which exist here!

A beautifully polished, sharpened blade has been given a new home, and a pair of creamy-coloured ivory scales have been given a new lease on life.

In this final photograph, you can see just how dramatic the difference is between the two blades – the original German one, made in Solingen (on the left), and the replacement Bengall one, made in Sheffield, (installed between the ivory scales, on the right).

The installation of the new blade was both easier, and more difficult, than I had initially expected it to be. Easier, because the steps required to make it happen were not really that difficult to execute, but also more difficult, because of the unexpected steps that had to be taken, over the course of the refurbishment.

Thanks for reading my latest restoration project! I hope you enjoyed it and will return again soon. Fixing antiques and breathing new life into them has always been one of my big hobbies. This isn’t my first antique restoration, and certainly won’t be my last – but it is my first restoration of an antique straight razor! Despite the setbacks, I think we can confidently call this a success.

Here, you can see the completed razor alongside the two other ivory-scaled razors in my collection…

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Antique Chinese Silver Retractable Ear-Curette & Toothpick Pendant

 

This is probably one of the most interesting, unusual, useful, and, possibly – off-putting – pieces in my eclectic collection of antiques.

This was something that I scored on the great online flea-market we call eBay (remember folks! I’m on eBay now!). It isn’t something especially common, and I thought it’d make a great little novelty addition to my collection.

This solid silver rectangular pendant, with a ring-top and a pair of toggles on the sides was something that I stumbled across completely by chance on the internet, and once I realised what it was, I decided that I simply had to have it, even if only for the novelty aspect of the whole thing!

Very common in Chinese culture, these ear-curette and toothpick pendants were extremely popular in the late 1800s and early 1900s, and were commonly used by Chinese women to remove stubborn earwax from their ear-canals, or crud from between their teeth after meals. In an age before consistent, and quality dentistry, anything extra that you could use to keep your teeth clean would’ve been very useful!

This particular pendant has two slide-out implements: A curette (an earwax-spoon), and a toothpick. They were most commonly made of either gold (usually 18kt), or silver (800, 900, or 925 sterling), and were popular as trinkets, gifts and practical little doodads to carry around with you on a day out.

Here, you can see the toothpick. Fully extended, the whole thing is about 3 inches long, from the point of the toothpick to the end of the ringtop. The slide-toggles are shaped like flowers, and the sides of the pendant are also decorated with leaves and flowers.

On the other side is the little hook/spoon-shaped scoop for removing earwax.

Pendants like this one were commonly worn around the neck with a matching chain of either gold, or in this case – solid silver. My grandmother had a pendant like this in solid gold which I remember from my childhood. It was lost in a move and we never saw it again, but it is nice to have this little trinket – a unique piece of Asian silverware, not likely to be found manufactured anywhere else in the world!

Although this is probably the smallest antique I’ve ever bought, at just over 1.5 inches long, I think that it ranks up there as one of the most interesting, because of how unique it is. They aren’t common, and so far as I know, aren’t made in modern times. At least, not in this configuration! I hope you found this short posting enjoyable and got the chance to see something that perhaps, you’ve never seen before, or perhaps, not even thought might exist!

Well, now you do.

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Whistle-Blower: An 1887 Metropolitan Police Whistle

 

The chilly winter air, the flurries of snow, the heaving, choking smog, the hissing, flickering luminescence of gas-fired streetlamps. Footsteps in the distance. Somewhere, a clock-tower chimes midnight.

Suddenly, a scrambling of feet! A struggle! The sound of a body falling, and the distant ‘splash!’ of something heavy hitting the water.

A moment of silence. And then the crisp midnight air is sliced in half with the shrill, discordant screeching sound of a whistle…

The Victorian era was obsessed with four things: Crime, death, standardisation, and modernisation. In sixty years, technology advanced by leaps and bounds unheard of in previous lifetimes, and one object encapsulated all these things in one – one of the most iconic items associated with the Victorian era: The humble Metropolitan Police Whistle.

The Origins of the London Metropolitan Police

Established by Sir Robert Peel in 1829, the “New Police” or to give it its proper title: The London Metropolitan Police, was the world’s first modern police force – a state-run organisation of paid, professional officers, designed specifically to detect, deter, and solve crimes.

Prior to this time, ‘policing’ was often carried out by the civic guard, soldiers, parish constables, or the night watch, as in Rembrandt Van Rjin’s famous painting…

“De Nachtwacht” (“The Night Watch”) by Rembrandt Van Rjin

Here, you can see the men of the night watch, armed and protected with pikes and halberds (in the background), helmets, and muzzle-loading muskets (on the left and right).

The whole concept of the police was so new that Peel wasn’t even sure how it was supposed to operate. For example, police were originally expected to be on duty at all times, and to wear their uniform at all times. Then they changed it so that an armband on the sleeve of the uniform indicated whether the officer was, or was not, on duty. Finally, they decided that officers would only be on duty when they wore their uniforms, and did not have to wear them when they were not on duty!…things were very confusing! And it only got even more confusing when they actually had to fight crimes in progress.

The new London police service patrolled the streets day and night, working in timed shifts which covered specific quarters of the city (known as ‘beats’). If a policeman did one thing more than any other – it was walking. In the days before telephones and emergency-service numbers, a physical, visible police presence on the streets was the best way to detect and deter crime.

But what happened when crime was detected? A constable might try and combat the criminal himself, but if this wasn’t possible, then he would need to call for backup. This was usually done by beating his truncheon against fence-railings or along the pavement, or by swinging a heavy, wooden rattle round and round and round. The blades of the rattle snapped and clapped back and forth along the ratchet inside, making an almighty racket!

The problem was that the rattle was bulky, difficult to carry, heavy (it had to be large enough to make a loud-enough noise to be heard over the traffic, don’t forget), and it could easily be taken by a criminal and used as a club to attack the officer, if he so desired. On top of that, despite the rattle’s size and weight, it was not always distinguishable over the sounds of a busy city – thousands of pedestrians, horses, carriage wheels, market cries and the sounds of industry could easily drown it out.

This was why, in the 1880s, the police, finally fed-up with this inefficiency, decided to rethink the equipment issued to constables on the beat.

Enter a man named Joseph Hudson.

Joseph Hudson & Co – Whistle Makers

Joseph Hudson was a Birmingham toolmaker and whistle-manufacturer who had established his business in 1870. Moderately successful, Hudson was quick to see that what the police needed was not a heavy, bulky rattle, but something small, lightweight, easy to carry, and which could produce a deafening noise!…They needed whistles! And by gum, he was going to be the fellow who was going to provide them!

A competition was announced in the London Times newspaper, and competitors were encouraged to submit their entries, which would be compared and tested. Hudson started manufacturing his whistle, trying to find a design which would be loud, distinct, and portable. The story is often told that he got the idea for how the whistle should sound when he knocked his violin off his workbench. The twanging, reverberating strings gave him the idea that the whistle should be two-toned – one blow by the user should produce two different notes. Combined, they would not only be louder, but also very distinctive – anybody hearing the whistle would know at once that it was a police whistle.

The Original Metropolitan Police Whistle

Hudson’s whistle performed admirably in tests conducted by the police. It was loud, had a long audible range, was compact, lightweight, robust, and distinct. The police liked it so much that they asked Mr. Hudson to start manufacturing these new whistles at once! Joseph Hudson was so eager to fulfill his enormous new contract that a lot of the earliest whistles came with manufacturing faults, and had to be sent back to the factory for repairs – awkward…

The whistle and its chain

But eventually, they got the manufacturing processes and quality-control up to snuff, and in 1883, the London Metropolitan Police started carrying the new whistles. Rattles were to be handed in as soon as possible, and the new whistle was to be introduced to the force to replace it. Originally, the whistle was hooked onto the uniform tunic with a chain, and the whistle hung straight down the front. This proved to be less than ideal – the whistle and chain would flop around if the officer had to engage in a foot-pursuit, or a suspect could grab the whistle and pull it away from the officer.

Later, police regulations were changed so that the whistle was stored in the breast-pocket of the uniform tunic, with the chain-hook going through the buttonhole of the nearest available button. The chain hung out of the pocket in a “U” shape. This arrangement allowed for inspectors to see that their officers were carrying their whistles, while also keeping them out of sight. The hanging chain also made it easy for the officer to pull his whistle out quickly in an emergency, but wasn’t so long that a suspect could grab hold of the chain during a scuffle. This arrangement is still used today with police dress-uniforms.

The hook at the end of the whistle-chain

Police whistles were largely made of either nickel-silver, a nickel-alloy, or else were made of brass, and later plated in nickel. Which whistles were made of which material changed over time, depending on which metal was more available.

During the First World War, for example, J. Hudson & Co. actually had to make its whistles out of steel (donated by the Cadbury Chocolate Co. workers over in Bournville!) because the British government decreed that brass (the usual whistle-material) was required for the war-effort! But nobody needed the steel used to make chocolate-boxes and biscuit-tins, so it was used to make whistles, instead!

Dating Antique Police Whistles

As police whistles started becoming more and more popular, both in London and then further afield in the UK, and then around the world, mostly following the British model, manufacturers rushed to meet the demand. Other industries such as railroads, insane asylums, prisons, and countless other institutions and organisations suddenly realised how useful whistles could be, and they too, started putting in orders.

The earliest Metropolitan police whistles, as made by J. Hudson & Co., were produced in the company’s factory on 84 Buckingham Street, in Birmingham, starting in 1883. Within two years, demand was vastly outstripping supply, and Joseph Hudson was forced to close his original factory, and move to larger premises at 131 Barr Street, in 1884-85.

Even as the company moved manufacturing facilities, it also changed manufacturing processes, styling, stamps, and marks. This is what makes antique whistles so easy to date. Knowing how long and between what dates a company remained at a particular address helps you to date when a whistle was made.

The address of 131 Barr Street, on the whistle barrel

While changes in barrel markings and addresses can give you a date-range for when the whistle was made, more subtle changes in the whistle’s manufacturing can help to narrow down the date to an actual year. Variables such as the shape of the loop on the top of the whistle, the shape of the mouthpiece, and even the style and spacing of the branding-stamps on the barrels all changed over time as manufacturing techniques changed or improved. This is how it was possible to date this particular whistle to 1887!

How were the Whistles Used?

So far, I’ve covered why the whistles were created, what they were made of, and how they were dated, but how were they used?

The whole purpose of the whistles, like the rattles which they replaced, was to raise the alarm and call for assistance. In Victorian times, the only way for the police to respond to crime was to literally be there on the spot when it happened. There was no such thing as telephone or police radios in those days. Officers walked beats (timed patrol-routes) around their city, town or village, usually in shifts of one hour, after which they could return to the station-house for a break, a drink, a rest, and either go back out on patrol, or go home, if their shift had ended.

While out on the road, officers had no way of communicating with each other. If they spotted a crime in progress – a mugging, burglary, theft or even a murder – it was up to the officer on the scene to take charge of the situation. If the situation was more than he could handle, or if it suddenly went out of control – that’s what the whistle was for. Blowing the whistle as long and loud as you could would alert other officers on nearby beats that immediate assistance was required, and they would respond by rushing in the direction of the last whistle blast.

In this way, the whistle acted as both an instrument for calling backup, and as a siren, to alert people to what was going on. It also acted as a physical marker, so that people could hurry to the location where a policeman needed assistance, by following the sound of the whistle.

Police whistles remained in regular use from the 1880s up until the 1970s, when factors like improved portable communications devices, cars, and better electronics finally rendered them obsolete. They’re manufactured today largely for tourists, collectors, police dress-uniforms, and for historical reenactments or as movie- or television-props.

Collecting antique police whistles is a big hobby, and high prices can be paid for whistles which are particularly old, or which have rare stamps on the barrels, indicating that they were manufactured for, or issued to, different police forces or organisations.

Of the original J. Hudson whistles, probably the rarest or most collectible are the first-generation ones marked “84 Buckingham St.” on the barrels, because these were only made for two years. Even rarer than that are the handful of whistles from this time with even rarer markings on them. Rarer, because they were manufactured specifically for the various lunatic asylums around the UK at the time, and bear markings of the asylums to which they were issued. These whistles are among the most expensive, costing several hundred or even thousands of dollars each.

The second generation whistles, from the 1880s and 1890s, such as the one featured in this posting, are a little easier to find, although they are a bit more expensive than the average price for an antique whistle, due to their age.

I hope you found this glimpse into the history of whistles interesting. More postings along a similar theme are planned for the future, so keep an eye out for them!

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Now Selling on eBay!

 

I have been updating a few things on my blog over the past week or so, and one of those things was removing and updating the links and information in the “EXTERNAL LINKS” page on the side.

I have now added in a link for my eBay page! I’ve been selling antiques and collectibles online since 2015, and since the start of the pandemic this year, I’ve been slowly moving across to eBay.

As of the time of this posting, I’ve been selling on there for about six months. Feel free to shop and browse all the stuff on sale.

While I sell mostly to Australian customers, where possible, I’m also happy to sell to international customers, too. Just keep in mind that obviously, international sales will incur higher postage costs and longer delivery-times (especially with the coronavirus pandemic going around at the moment). If you decide to buy multiple lots, postage will be combined where possible, to save costs.

So, feel free to look around and bid! I’m also open to reasonable offers on most items. The link is the red button down below.

My eBay Page!

Thanks for looking, everybody!