Thread: "Picked Over" or "Over Picked"?

...That may be one of my more lame attempts at a clever/nutshell title .

The purpose of this thread: To show examples of razors, or other vintage items, that have been scooped up, then sold by people that simply trying to make a quick buck. Their heart is not in it. Or they don't have the aptitude for proper care of an item. Or it was part of an estate they inherited, and thusly liquidated. Or they only half-ass work not done for themselves. It may, or may not be through no fault of their own.

Either they botched/butchered the restore, or the cleaning and/or shine job was slap-dash. This is observations, opinions, and deductive conclusions based on our collective knowledge & experience.

Kind of similar to "The Wall of Shame", but intended (IMO) more to diagnose & troubleshoot specific missteps, if possible. Also, preferably with razors "in hand", rather than the saw-toothed examples seen in online listings.

I hope this to be educational & enlightening for us all!

So here is my first contribution to this thread.

Minor background info: a month or so ago, I stumbled into an online auction "off the beaten path". This particular site usually had less than a dozen shaving related things, including RSO's. This time, one auction had more than 10× the norm in a single place. I managed to get three SRs that were whole (save for one type or another of damage to the scales on two); and three lots of four blades each, mixed between salvageable & snaggle-tooth remnants .

One requiring the least amount of work was a W&B near-wedge with (I think) horn scales starting to delaminate a bit, & a crack in the horn on one side at the pivot pin.

I tried dealing with the bit of rust left behind on the top & bottom of the tang, which never reaches outside of the scales. I then polished it a bit with MAAS... cause why not ? Then I got to honing it. That's where the trouble started. Which will likely get it's own thread in the appropriate forum for help...

First, a pic or three, then my assumption.

Obvious "funny business" going on at the heel...





I highly doubt that W&B would let a razor out the doors in this sort of shape(s). It looks like someone was either heavy-handed at the buffing wheel (or grinder, but I hope not), or inattentive. Seems like too much metal was removed at a few spots, when considering a vertical cross-section. Are my thoughts still coherent? Lol.

Thoughts? Other examples?

I look forward to seeing what has passed through your hands!

looks like a amateur attempt at a regrind. look forward to more examples.

There's a W&B FBU on eBay right now, just had the crap buffed out of it, and badly to, vertical lines all over the face of the razor and a crystal clear bevel, just a head shaker...

Originally Posted by tintin

looks like a amateur attempt at a regrind. look forward to more examples.

That was another one of my suspicions, though I lack enough knowledge on that to come to a reasonable conclusion on my own.

I forgot to mention the obvious hone wear, but that could also be a symptom of the amateur work done before I rescued this old dog...

Alright. Now that I'm at home & on Wi-Fi, I can add some more examples.

These all came from the same place that I got the above mentioned W&B. They all show signs of, IMHO, a slap-dash job at the buffer. Though not really scratches like you would see in the stria from sand paper, many of the razors had vertical lines. And most, if not all, had rust in the "nooks and crannies": where the heel meets the tang, or the point of all of them, regardless of having a barber's notch or not.









Sorry for the picture quality, I was excitedly snapping pics at work with my phone, having pilfered my haul from the mailbox on my way in that day .

One could argue that the rusting in nooks and crannies is from poor drying after shaving. Some scratches could have been from towels contaminated in some fashion as well. As far as the first razor is concerned, some serious grinding was done at the heel from what I can see. May have been some serious pitting or an attempt at accomplishing something entirely different....