First post! I've been shaving straight for two and a half months now, lurking on the SRP forums all the while. Thank you all for the great resource!

I've been shaving with a Col. Conk "Best Quality" blade I got secondhand on Craigslist. Before you tell me that it was forged by slave labor in Pakistan, quenched in the blood of orphans, blunted out of spite, and 100% of Col. Conk's proceeds go to Al Qaeda recruitment, don't bother. I've read it already. Based on the opinions I've read about Col. Conk, I would have expected this razor to sneak out of my bathroom cabinet at night and crawl, inchworm-style, down the hall to my bedroom and slit my throat while I sleep. This has not yet happened. In fact, after about two weeks of abysmal irritation, I've been consistently getting smooth, comfortable shaves. I sharpen it once a week (also a Col. Conk hone - I don't actually know what the grit is), and strop 50/100 before each shave. It passes the hanging hair test at six or eight different points on the blade every day. Any small nicks I get are fully attributable to my own inattention.

So if this is a lousy blade, what's the difference? How would a professionally-honed Boker, Double Duck, Wade and Butcher, etc., improve my life? Are they just shinier with pretty scales, or is the shave appreciably different? How?