Oh the allure of a Gold Dollar razor to the new straight shaver. You are telling me I can get a razor that will shave for under ten dollars shipped?!?!?!?! What is wrong with all these suckers paying 100 bucks? How is Dovo still in business? A Gold Dollar can be made shave ready and be a pretty darn good shaver; that is a fact! What you don't see is the amount of effort it can take to get from point A to shave ready.

Gold Dollar in my experience has been quite the crap shoot razor to razor. My first 66 had a stablizer that was obscene; I mean like a good bit of Dremel grinding to fix the issue. That is not even the worst... Today I got another 66 and it is a trainwreck, a fixable trainwreck, but it's gonna be a lot of work before it even touches the hones.

The new 66's edge has heel spur, a toe spur (didn't even know this existed til today), and a couple frowns. The blade hits the scales when you close it, the round point is way off kilter, and as always the stabilizer is a mess. That means I have to: breadknife the blade, change out the scales (I could probably straighten the blade, but the scales look terrible and crack easily), possibly straighten out the point for looks, grind out the stablizer, and finally reset a factory bevel from my breadknife. This is a decent amount of time and work with some experience, so imagine it being your first go. This does not even include running it through a honing regiment and most honers aren't gonna do that initial work for ya.

Doing this work can be fun and really rewarding, but not as your first razor. Your first Gold Dollar should be your first restore/project razor if anything. You learn a ton and it is okay to screw it up. Plus you should see some of the mods other people do....AWESOME. A fixed GD is a great way to practice honing strokes as well and I often use my GDs as new hone testers. Learning to shave with a straight is pretty darn hard at first so save yourself the 10 bucks and many headaches til later on when it will be fun and valuable. Get a good vintage razor off the classifieds or buy new, but get something that out of the box is gonna be a great shaver without any work. I am not saying don't buy a GD; I am saying wait and go into it with clear expectations. That GD is gonna need work, but that's the best part about them. They are only as good as you can make them.