Thread: Intro and new Boker Feather Weight

Greetings all! I'm Jason from Redding, CA. As a newbie to straight razor shaving and this forum I'm completely obsessed with everything about straight razors. I'm sure my wife would confirm this... especially over the last few days. Anyway, I've been on the hunt for a good first razor and I want to learn to shave myself with a straight.

I just picked up a Boker Feather Weight from a local antique shop with original scales for $20. It appears to be in good condition (to my untrained eye), but I would love to get opinions from some seasoned straight razor veterans on whether this would be worth getting professionally honed, or cleaned/restored, and otherwise made to be "shave-ready". I'm mainly interested in having a razor that will shave nicely. Bonuses are that it is a Boker, which I've heard are nice AND it appears to have the original scales and be fairly clean.

Here are some pictures -

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Any information or opinions are much appreciated.

Probably original scales by looking at the pivot pin, which is a plus. Looks like someone has tried to regrind it to either hide the hone wear or they wanted it to be more of a hollow. I personally wouldn't spend a lot on "restoring" it due to the re-grinding, but I would recommend you having it honed and try it out. If it shaves well, you may want clean up the grinding marks by using it as your first restore. I broke a set of scales like yours on a boker wedge (actually a 1/4 hollow) trying to remove the scales...they're pretty fragile if you are trying to disassemble them. In a nutshell, it's worth sending out to be honed & used, but probably not too high on the collectable side IMO.

yeah, looks like someone took to grinding it a bit, but it may still be a good shaver... only one way to find out good luck and welcome!

Cool... thanks for the opinions guys. I'm definitely going to get it honed and cleaned up and give it a try. I'll report back once that has occurred.