Thread: eBay Purchases - Restores for fun!

Ok - so I was looking around on eBay and found two razors pretty cheap that didn't look like they were in bad shape. I went in late on bidding and ended up winning them for pretty cheap, so I figure even if they need some work on the honing front, I've got two razors to play with. I have a new Ralf Aust that is my shaver now, so hopefully, after a bit of work, these can be added into rotation, but the good news is that I don't need them right now so I'm in no rush. The other nice thing is that I know what "Shave Ready" is, and I'm feeling pretty good with my good razor as it stands today. So, these are "fun" straights just to play with for now.

One is a Boker, the other a Dovo. Got them in the mail today and at least to my untrained eye, they seem to be in decent shape. I am interested in getting into the restore/honing/vintage side of things as well, and am curious on seeing how these change. One of them appears to maybe have a bit of bevel still on the blade, but the other seems completely lost. In either case, these probably both need their bevels set and then sharpened up from there. My debate now is, do I send one out to get redone by a pro and then keep the other to work and practice with? Do I send them both out so I can have a comparison of good before/after for future purchases and see it done on two different blades?

I'm not rushing, and still haven't picked up a honing kit, but I had money in my PayPal account that was just sitting there, and these were cheap . . . so hey, why not? If I shave with them before Christmas, I'll be pleasantly surprised.

Oh, and just to be clear, these are completely dull right now and don't really even pull on an arm hair test. Neither were billed as shave ready, so I wasn't expecting anything more than what I got.