Well I finally have worked out how to get a post up - us old blokes are sometimes a little techinically challenged you know.

What led me to this place is that I bought my razor & strop around 1964 and the strop has given up the ghost and I was getting jacked off using my belt to strop my razor so I had the need for a new strop, and getting one that I thought was good led me to go shopping on the internet and I did find somthing that is good.

What I found fascinating is this 'world' of people who use razors, for I sort of thought I was a bit of an eccentric using a razor.

I think the thing that got me in originally was the fact that it was not a throw away object and of being able to 'do it yourself' particularly in being able to create an edge good enough to shave with. Upon reflection I must have been a bit of a greeenie long before it was fashionable.

Over time,certain possessions become a part of your personna, and there is no doubt a razor falls into that category.

The particular razor I bought all those years ago was a Gotta - Soligen made hollow ground in silver steel. The etching on the blade has long since gone and whilst still shiny there are plenty of watermarks, and dark spots on it now. From what I have been able to glean from the internet I do not think Gotta razors are made any more.

Now this particular razor gets a lot of use, for a great passion of mine is cycling - of a more serious nature - and as such have shaved my legs for a lotta years now and this razor gets used for that on a weekly basis. Why do cyclists shave their legs - well that is a whole subject by itself, but it just goes to highlight how much use you can put good eqipment to and it jsut keeps on going

I am starting to warm to the idea of maybe buying a new razor, but I doubt I will get anything like 40 odd years use out of the next one. It is hard to find quality these days [?]

The most encouraging thing is that there is obviously a lot of people out there who still value some of the more traditional things in life. I tend to think that by reading articles shaving with a razor has been raised to an art form whereas to me it is just somthing you do