Buying a straight razor, England, 1932

Factual Questions
1

This question inspired by Dorothy L. Sayers’ classic whodunnit Have His Carcase.

The book is 90 years old, I hope I don’t have to use spoiler boxes. But i’ll add a small spoiler space for those who haven’t read it

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The murder weapon was a straight or cut-throat razor which slit the victim’s throat. But the thing that baffles me is the extraordinary convoluted lengths the killer had to go through to obtain the weapon in the first place. The killer posed as an unemployed barber who applied for a job in a high class salon. Upon being turned down, he persuaded them to sell him one of their razors. All of this drew attention to himself, and made tracking him all the easier.

But why bother? Was it really that hard to get a razor at that date and place? Couldn’t he just buy one from an ironmongers and remain unnoticed? Or was there maybe some restriction on the sale, allowing only barbers and valets to buy them?

Note - this is a FQ about buying razors. We can discuss the book itself when that question is answered.

2

About all I can think of is that by 1910 safety razors were likely the standard for most people who shaved, so maybe finding a straight razor was something of an adventure, and required going to where they were still in use- professional barbers.

3

But you can still walk into a cutlery store even today and buy all the straight razors and huge knives you want for cash.

I would have to re-read the story to recall exactly what was up.

4

But it wasn’t easy to trace. It was Wimsey’s personal knowledge that led him to the long retired fellow who had produced the set of 20 ivory-handled straight razors, and was able to tell him who had bought each one. If that fellow had died, or no-one could find him, then it would have been a dead end.

5

That’s more a discussion of the book. We can talk about that later, please. After the FQ part has been answered.

6

My understanding is that uptake of safety razors only took off after WWI, and before that, straight razors would still be the standard.

And the people who made and sold one kind, also made and sold the other, anyway (a decade before, but still…):

“Sold Everywhere”, it says.
Here’s a 1934 ad, indicating the razor could be bought at “hairdressers, cutlers, stores, etc”

I think the idea of having to fake a barber job just to get a straight razor is pure fantasy.

7

They’re still readily available now. Quick Amazon search shows several different options. And you can order them online at other vendors as well.

I’m not sure how easy they’d be to find in a brick and mortar these days, but that’s true in general for a lot of products. But they weren’t exactly impossible to find even in the pre-internet days, though most people preferred safety razors. It’s not England, but in the US, you could have ordered one from the Sears Roebuck catalog well into the 1940s, if not later.

8

Quite easy - just look for a beauty supply store, the sort that sells to barbers and hairdressers. Granted, they aren’t the old-fashioned cutthroat razors, but hairdressers still use straight razors to clean up around hairlines.

9

I recently reread the story. I think the point was that Wimsey identified the razor as very unusual and knew who had made it.

10

The barber shop I go to now does as well. It was a little scary the first time. But these people could do in on a bus driving down a bumpy road.

11

Or there’s remote control. Allegedly.

12

From the answers given here it sounds to me like the author just required the purchase of the razor to be interesting or difficult as a plot point.

I know you (quite rightly) don’t want to discuss the story here, but my query assists with answering the FQ - if the protagonist had simply purchased a razor from a store in the usual way, would the plot fall apart? If so, I don’t think you need search too long and hard for an answer to whether you could buy a straight razor from a store in the usual way, at that time.

13

This must be it— the issue is not buying a straight razor, which even today you can buy at any cutler’s, but the fact that it was a distinctive, limited-edition razor which narrowed things down.

14

Did it have to be that specific razor, for some reason?

15

That’s sort of a new thing, driven by a resurgence in old-school “wet” shaving and the availability of internet businesses.

If you went back to say… 1990, you’d have a lot more trouble finding one. You’d probably have had to find a barber supply store or an estate sale or something like that.