Thread: Experts Wanted: Dead or Alive

Looking to move up in the shaving world and try out a straight edge. Ive been reading information and was looking at vintage razor on ebay and the classifieds here.
Found one on ebay that caught my eye. The length of blade is short 2-3/4 by 5/8 and seems to have a rounded corner(??). Wondering if this is a decent razor type for a newbie, as in good product: metal and handle, ability to be honed and such. Only hit I got was bartmann is german made and is very nice.
Vintage BARTMANN Straight Razor w/Silver Inlay - eBay (item 230292655955 end time Sep-23-08 09:51:02 PDT)
Thanks for helping a newbie
Don

First I would say welcome to SRP glad to have you aboard the straight train....
That Bartman is a top quality brand, they make excellent shavers, and the round point is a good starter... That razor has a slight bit of toe wear but not bad at all.... The only thing that might happen is I would bet that the price is going to go up substantially from the $29 but hey you might get lucky

In fact if it were a Spike point I would be all over it

Looks like a decent starter razor.
You can also pick up a decent starter razor from Kenrup who is a member of the forum here.

A Bartmann would make a great starter razor. As mentioned, the price is likely to go up quite a bit. Also, since this is your firsh straight, I would suggest sending the razor out to be honed; keep in mind what honing will cost and factor that into the price.

For obvious reasons, I own a few Bartmanns.
They are great shavers and the ones I got all have pretty hard steel, taking some extra effort to hone.
The one that caught your attention looks good, and is a good size and model (round point) for starting out. It could run up to over 100$, though.

Bart.

That could be a very nice shaver indeed.

X

I would go for one of the razors in the Classifieds (like this one for example). At least, you will stand a decent chance of it actually being shave ready if so advertised. Besides, this razor will indeed go for a lot more than USD 29.

That said, I own one Bartmann, and it's very nice.

After doing some buying on Ebay I have come to the conclusion that I would rather pay a little more & buy on SRP classifieds because members here are more scrupulously honest about what they're selling & you won't end up with a blade that has tiny chips that, though small, take hours & hours to sand out. That's what I would recommend for your first razor. Once you get bitten by the restoration bug...well, that's another can of worms.