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| NOTE THE 'TWISTED' HANDLE DESIGN AND COLLAR ATTACHMENT POINT |
F W ENGELS HAIRDRESSERS SCISSORS (Shears)
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NO COLLAR ATTACHMENT BUT TWISTED DESIGN HANDLES & CENTRE ATTACHMENT
Between 1909 and 1943, the company F. W. Engels on Broome Street, in New York sold Razors, scissors and other blades manufactured by Engelswerk CW in Solingen, Germany. Solingen steel is some of the best in the world and known for its ability to take and hold an edge for a considerable length of time
What we have then is a similar design but no 'collar' attachment. It will be worth searching through Vintage Mail Order catalogues both in the US and Australia up to 1943.
CLOSE-UPSThe German Manufacturing company, Engelwerk CW In Germany closed up in 1943. The NY shop, unable to carry on without its supplier similarly closed in 1943. Amongst other items F./W. Engels, the shop, sold razors and cutlery. They distributed them throughout the US.
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Gordon, thanks! This is really useful and is making me sway back toward the broken scissors explanation to be honest. The reason I had thought that the protruding loop end of the implement shown in the store-room suitcase picture (with contents "tipped out") was unlike scissors was because I'd expected the shaft/lever (sorry, I'm not familiar with scissor morphology!) leading toward the hinge to be offset from the centre of the loop.
ReplyDeleteBut your Solingen example shows, a perfectly circular finger loop and a central lever is a legitimate scissor design.
Given that there's no official mention of loupe in the inventory, but there is mention of broken scissors, I'm inclined to think we're looking at those.
The question is: what are they used for?
The image shows the one finger grip, that suggests that was likely the broken scissor piece. Such pieces are handy just to have in the toolbox for use as a pick or maybe a paint can opener.
ReplyDeleteThe strop end is unlikely, it's shown elsewhere on this blog, years ago the Adelaide University group identified it as probably made in Sydney and sold by many retailers.
Let me see now, two combs, scissors, razor, strop. I wonder what kind of person would have these:
ReplyDeletehttp://halfaworldaway.orangemuseum.com.au/pages/jobs/hairdressing.cfm
So, the half scissor looks to have been hairdressers sheers whilst the other pair of scissors are very like a tailor's scissors. Just for the record, scissors with even shaped finger slots of equal size were for ambidextrous users in those days, one exception being small fingernail scissors.
ReplyDeleteTailor's scissors have shorter, thicker blades made for cutting through heavy duty materials or several layers of material at once. Think we covered this about 11 years ago?