It is just a hair under 8/8. Found it on the bay few years ago. I paid significantly less than $2500 for it. By the way mine says Pearlduck on the back of the tang just like the one in the OPs picture.
They didn't make razors, they were strictly a vendor and contracted the things they sold to various companies. It looks to me like a manufacturing mistake, as I've never seen blade decoration on any of their marketing materials.
At one point in their operations they were able to source some generic Solingen marked blades for a good price so they bought what they could and then had their logos just added to the already decorated blades. Unusual yes but not as much as you might think. DD sold many strange looking models that are truly rare and almost never come up at all. The Golden Mandarin is one of those. There are some way rarer the have never come up.
That is a stunning Duckie, regardless of its provenance. Unfortunately, I can't seem to swing any Ducks at the prices they are going for, much less a rarity such as that!
Oh well, I'm still finding some unnoticed gems here and there. Almost every razor I own I gave much less than I generally see them go for. Diligence and patience reel in some very nice razors for those with limited means.
The last 2 8/8 Goldedges I saw go on the bay were both sold at less than half that combined. The first 1 I missed because of the dang confirm button and learning to snipe. The second was just like this one and although a lot less than THAT still more than I would pay. A detail I do seem to remember on one of them at least , is that they used the Goldedge brass without the duck bolsters. These 8/8 scales are way to big to use the standard brass. There must have been more 7/8s made because they do have a larger size bolster with ducks for those. In the Goldedge anyway.
If you bid on it and lose I have an 8/8 Satinedge and could use a new truck :<0)
That makes total sense to me has I really don't think that blade was truly made by them it looks more like as you say a big 8/8 Solingen blade with a added Dubl Duck logo I even recognize the etching you can find the exact blade in a Revisor model over on the Revisor site, I'm almost certain If that was a true Dubl Duck there would have been no etching a completely clean blade.
That is truly overpriced for a dubl dubk imho. An interesting razor for sure. I managed to snag an unusual Dubl Duck. A roundpoint 7/8ths which is one of my favourite blades in my rotation. I prefer the clean lines of the blade without the gold etching.
http://i111.photobucket.com/albums/n...pscea0ce6d.jpg
http://i111.photobucket.com/albums/n...9-26083357.jpg
Most of the Solingen makers use generic blanks, for example all razors # 14. They are all over the world, and they are all made in Solingen.
Early ducks were sourced from France and the U.S too.