Thread: Victorian 7 Day set....opinions???

Antique John Heiffor British Army 7 Days of Week Straight Razor Set w Case RARE | eBay

I'm watching this and am interesting in anyones thoughts on this.
I'm new to bidding on eBay. I had trouble getting/winning a Barber's Hone...ended up just buying one (carborundum 102).
Read up a bunch on the hone here on the site.

SO, I'm interested in the experienced eyes that exist here.
SWMBO is NOT happy that I'm even looking....so I guess I'm just looking to start a discussion/learn a few things about sets like these.

I hope this starts some good discussion, if not, that's OK too I guess.

Everyone have a great day AND happy bidding.

You can tell from the wordy-yet-uninformative description that the Seller don't know squat about straight razors -- all those friggin' numbers, but no mention of blade width. Not to put too fine a point on it, but out of twelve photos, four of 'em are of the friggin' box! (and only one of those two razors-in-box photos is worth including).

IMNSHO, unless you're a wealthy collector, or plan on using one as your one-and-only razor rotation, 7-day sets are fine to look at, but not worth buying. Sure, even if it goes for $650, the math's good on a per-razor basis; but seven identical, mediocre razors (all of which will require honing, and that one with corrosion front and back)? Not on my dime.

Save your money and take a pass on this one. YMMV.

Thanks JB,
I too was wondering about all the verbiage, and then I noticed that it is word for word of what is on the case.
And I found myself wondering what the blade width was too.

I'm certainly NOT wealthy...just really interested in these 7 day sets.
Can't wait to hear what others have to say...

I have always been intrigued by the "7 Day Sets" and have often bid then chuckled as the price flies way out of sight. JB brings up some good points which even clarified the way I will be looking at these in the future.

The one thing I did was do an eBay search on just the maker and came up with this:

heiffor | eBay

As you can see there area few Heiffor SR's for sale and they aren't going for much money or seeing much action at all. That could mean it is a normal, mediocre razor and simply isn't worth a lot or more likely that the majority of people haven't used them so there isn't a big push/demand for them.

Compare that to a "Henckels Razor" search:

Henckels razor | eBay

... Totally different results and you can see the price/demand in a completely different light.

So much of any purchase is subjective but if you try to whittle down as much objective information as possible you can sometimes glean clues... And, from what I see, the clue here is that average price for one of the razors in that 7 Day Set looks to be worth $10 or less... Multiply by 7 would be $70 and then you add the fact that it is a 7 Day Set with a 'whatever' condition box with a completely absent latch and maybe bump the individual price by 50% and you'd get $105... Add 50% more because you 'really' want a 7 Day Set and you get $155. Current Bid is $470 plus $16 for Shipping and you are comparing a ballpark desired price range of under $160 to what is likely to be greater than $500 and that means either my formula is rank with error, there is a LOT of emotional energy behind that bidding or I am missing a huge factor/consideration in my pricing.

Army/Navy/Marine Razors are definitely sought after and so this Set may have a lot more going for it that I don't know about but I just don't see it. And, when you add in JB's assertion about "7 mediocre" razors it is definitely a no-go... In fact, after reading that I'm now thinking that unless it is a set of named/known/proven razors that I have used and already love I'm going to pass on 7 Day Sets almost at any price.

I will just keep it as my White Whale and keep doing alternative searches which involve misspellings/mis-categorized items and hope to one day get lucky. ;-)

Cool Thread that gave me a great "Aha!" moment! :-D

Shawn
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Yes, have to say, as much as I like the 7 day set idea, the more I thought about it, the more restrictive it actually is.

The same razor, just with a different day on it, forever. Wrote this in another thread, so what if Tuesday's blade is the best and Friday's is the worst? Suddenly you hate Friday's!! haha

For me, I can rotate the blades I have and use what I want, when I want, without being restricted by the set, which is exactly, IMO, like JBHoren said, restricted to 7 mediocre blades forever....

So, YMMV, but not for me....

Shawn,
Thanks for your insights and personal calculus on what your Top Bid would be.
+1 on the emotional energy...it certainly seems like people get carried away.
After doing my own Top Bid calculations, I plan to set a top 'automatic bid' and then just leave it alone.
Thanks Shawn....

Big Phrank!
Like you, I like changing things up blade wise; 5/8 full hollow, followed by 13/16 near wedge, then settle in on day 3 with a 6/8 hollow.
7 days in a row with only the day changing on the spine would get old after a while....

OK, here's my experience with multi-blade sets.

Early on in my straight razor life I was fascinated with multi-blade sets. Absolutely fascinated. Loved them, loved the idea of them, subsequently bought a few.

You know where those sets are now? Oiled up in a storage box. Last time I used one was quite some time ago now.

Now this could just be me, I have a notoriously short attention span. But that's been my experience. They seem like a great idea, but the shine wears off (for me at least) quite quickly.

Plus they usually end up quite expensive on a per razor basis for some reason.

James.

Actually, one thing I've found in their favour is they are quite useful when travelling. If I have to be away from home for a reasonable amount of time (>5 days say) I'll usually chuck in one of the multi-blade sets. My favourite for that is a 5 day Joseph Rodgers wedgey set with a single clip-in handle.

So to be fair they can be practically useful in that kind of way - just that in the past couple of years I haven't had to travel a lot, and the travel I have done has been shortish trips.

James.

Just looking at the sold bay listing Oct/Nov for John Heiffor, about 12, and generally they sold at around $30.00. Did not see one that went for $75.00 and more. They seem to be very workman like razors with not a lot of pazzazz sort of like a 4 door chevy vs a caddie.
It might be a relatively low cost way to get into a 7 day set if you really want one.

I watched a nice 7 day set for the last 2 minutes it was on and it went from holding for days at a little over $200.00, a slight bump with about 30 sec. to go and in the last sec jumped to over $1000.00. A new 7 day set is over 2 grand.

I think I would rather just pick a blade I like and buy it. The most I would go for in a set would be a gentleman's matched cased pair if I traveled with straights. that sort of has some practical logic to it from my perspective.

Bob