Purchased 7 St8 Razors! :) Info please

I went out to an antique mall over in st. charles missouri today and found a few str8 razors!

From top to bottom markings on tang:
1: Extra Hollow Ground Sheffield $15
2: W.H. Horley & Sons Clover Brand Germany $15
3: The Torrey Razor Co Worches*** ass* $15
4: H & J.W. King 22 Beekman Street New York $7.50
5: KOH-I-NOOR $7.50
6: Wade & Butcher $60.00
7: 4451 Germany $60.00

How was the purchase? Did I do ok?
I feel i have a few here i can practice honing and the others for collection or use.

Please post your comments and thoughts

Not bad. I am sure you wouldn't have bought them all had you believed it wasn't a good enough deal. We don't do valuations here but I think you know you most would hardly describe the purchases as daylight robbery. On second thoughts I'm not confident that I would have paid what you did for the Wade and Butcher. Perhaps, perhaps not.

I hope you know what to do with them. If not you at the correct place. Good luck

im looking around for stones now.
4000/8000 by norton i hear is a good place to start then to the strop? is this about right?

Not for ebay/antique store specials. For something like that, you'll need 1k, 4k, 8k.

Hi Clintontull,
On the face of it it looks like a good haul!!-without a closer look it's hard to tell.It really depends on the condition of the blades & scales.They look in reasonable condition to me from the photo.
Are you going to polish the blades?
If you are going to hone them yourself you will need a 1000k grit stone to cut a new bevel-the norton stones will come in handy for polishing and maintaining the edge of the razors though.
Good luck and hope you get them up and running.Let us know how you get on.
kind regards
Noggs :)

Quote:

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Originally Posted by clintontull

im looking around for stones now.
4000/8000 by norton i hear is a good place to start then to the strop? is this about right?

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Not a bad place to start, but not the correct place for you to start if those are the only razors you have and not shave ready, neither if you do not yet know how to hone.

Send one out to be honed by a honemeister among the classifieds. Lynn is your best bet, but any here are more than good enough. Buy a good quality strop in the mean time. Experience a professionally honed blade and then give honing a go on another to have a benchmark.

Do things properly the first time and save yourself time, money and aggravation.

Hope this helps

For the few that I have which one is of best quality to actually have one of the honemeisters work on?

Great score :)

I sugest sending at least 2 if you don't have any shave ready now.

My eyes are lieing to me as I've been up for 2 days... forgot to go to sleep last night...

Im looking at sending in one of the three.
Torrey
Wade & Butcher or the WH MOrley Clover Brand.

Ummm... That W&B is toxic... ya... Umm you need to send it to me for proper disposal :)

The only W&B I saw over at the antique places by my house had a big chip about a 1/2" into the blade and about a 1/4" wide. They wanted $60 for a worthless blade. Definatley send a few of those out.

So, being who I am I always do everything right the first time or so I think im doing it right. When I don't know I search and find the right guy with the knowledge. In this case I went straight to Lynn's house! I didn't realize how close he was until he sent me a shipping address. I said wait why pay that when I can drive down there and say hello myself and just "do it right the first time".

First I would like to thank Lynn Abrams for the tremendous hospitality. He was warm to welcome me and and was outright with any knowledge and answered any questions I had and even filled in the questions I didn't know to ask!

Here is how the day went.

First looked over the seven razors I brought down there and evaluated which could be a potentially good shaver. Picked out the ones that had the least pit marks. Informed me what to look for when looking for razors and what to spend if I found a decent restoration project. Then we decided on what to do. We took my Torrrey razor which has some wear on the spine but was certainly better than some of the others I had. Even the wade and butcher which looked reground "terrible shape". He then went down the whole process of removing the bad and then buffing and explainging what he was doing the whole way as if I was going to be doing this myself "hope to one day as a tinkerer that I am".
That process took about 2-3 hours.

The next was to repin one of them just to show me how it was done etc and types of woods, and other materials used in restoring scales. Very informative!

The next part we went upstairs and began the process of honing the edges on the razors. Oh did I mention that we have two razors. One of which he pulled out of his stock and cleaned up to take home with me! We went over all the different types of stones, hones, etc and even the hush hush stuff. LOL just kidding not really anything a secret when we talked and always answered the questions I had. We spent another 1.5 to two hours working on the edges etc.

Once that was over we went looked at soaps, creams, smelly stuff, brushes, you name it he had it and really just poured out the knowledge. I was very impressed how passionate he is with his hobby. I say hobby because from what I would see its his passion in life and with that would never be a day of work in his life doing what he loves. You can truly see how happy he is doing what he loves. He barks at himself when he knows it can be better and never stops until its perfect! "Period"

We then got down to the nervous shaking I anticipated all day. The first time I ever used a straight razor in my hands for what it was intended. (not chopping lumber with daddy's straight razor) lol jk but was good imagery and bet some of you cringed at the thought.... Well I learned how to use a good soap, a brush and how to lather the right way. The use of a hot towl the right way. I finished my first shave in about 40 minutes. Lets just say short strokes and really took my time. It was a very close shave. I get red and razor burn from Gillette razors and store bought and this we closer than i ever have shaved "with the grain" and it feels as close as using a Gillette against the grain "usually bleeding at that point" Then the cleanup and a sense of accomplishment and a profound feeling of im one of those guys that uses a straight razor! I went to work and told everyone about my vacation and everyone said I was crazy and eyes got all wide and jaws dropped to hear me say Im a proud straight razor shaving fella now.


Lynn - Thank you so very much and was one of the most memerable days in my young 30 years on the earth. I am proud to have experienced this with one of the worlds best straight razor experts.


Clinton Tull.

Here are two more razors i picked up at the flea market today. They had @ 60 or so of them there but were really bad shape most of them and sellers didnt have a clue. One was even selling the box with no razor for 35$. Like what the??? Some people i tell ya.
Anyhow here are the two i got today.
Any info on these would be appreciated.
Dont list prices if you do PM me.

Anyone have any ideas on the W one?