Hi all,

All the time you read here on the forums things like "get your razor honed first", "they are never shave ready out of the box" etcetera etcetera.

Now, I have 2 razors, a Dovo 5/8 silversteel hollow ground with ebony scales, and a Thiers Issard Silverwing 5/8 with ramshorn scales.

I'm shaving with both and just did my 10th shave. Both of them were purchased without any honing done on them by the sellers (2 different stores).

I shaved pretty good with them, but I don't have a reference point yet of "bad" versus "good" when it comes to shaving and razor sharpness. But in my experience, they remove hair, they can cut me pretty badly if I'm not careful, the cuts they produce are very clean (meaning sharp metal) but I have a gut feeling they could be sharper.

The Dovo did not and does not pass a hanging hair test, the TI did the first time out of the box, haven't checked it after that.

Stropping goes well and the edges look good under my triplet (magnifier) at 20x.

Now, am I just lucky that they can shave? Or are they not shave ready and am I just happy with a bad shave? Am I settling at the moment, should I have a much better shaving experience?

I would appreciate some perspectives on this.

thanks guys!