Thread: Newbie Alert

Hello gents,

I am actively researching straight razor shaving and have had several folks refer me to this site. While I will wait until I have read more of the posts here before wearing you all out with questions, I do have a couple (OK 3) of starter questions.

I am looking to purchase a couple of old razors to practice honing & stropping on.

1. Where do I look (is ebay the best option)?
2. What is a reasonable price to pay?
3. What things should I be looking for in a razor (are there some preferred brands)?

Let me also add, because I am purchasing these as practice razors, I am not overly concerned about their popularity or beauty. I do, however, want a Quality blade.

Any information, reading material, etc. that you can provide or point me toward would be greatly appreciated.

Kyle,

Welcome to SRP. Since I've thrown my 2 cents at you over at B&B, I'll let the real honemeisters here throw their thoughts at ya!

RT

Hey, Randy. Good to see you.

Kyle, you're almost better off asking on here if anyone has a few cheap but nice razors for you to practice on. Ebay has some great deals but a lot of pakistani razors are being disguised as "good" razors and people are getting gipped. and of course ebay's not doing a thing about the fraud that's going on. Carefully read the sellers reviews, even if they've got 98% or better satisfaction and especially if they are a powerseller. I've found some interesting "neutrals" by switching my screen to "200 per page" that really should have been negatives. There are a lot of people that will give a bad review just because that's what they like to do. You can usually tell those and see which ones are genuine. There's a list on here somewhere of sellers to stay away from.


Here's some tips I've gotten from some of the veterans here:
If you go for ebay keep to some of the brand names mentioned on the reference sheets in the files section here. look for obvious wear on the spine and frowning in the cutting edge, and other obvious signs of over honing. for practicing try to stay as low as you can go. sometimes you can get 1 to 3 razors for less than 20 bucks. Anything made in germany that's cheap with cheap shipping should be a good practice razor with potential to be a good shaver. be brave, ask lots of questions. If the pictures are fuzzy or there's only one, ask for extra pics via email. If the seller refuses to provide better info/detail/pics, walk away. It's probably not worth it. make sure the scales (handle) arent broken.

Local flea markets also have good razor buys from time to time. I've bought some nice ones at flea markets for 1 to 3 bucks. Occasionally some of the "antique" stores will have good deals (around here though they ask 100 when it's worth 10 and hate to haggle). Estate sales/auctions often will sell straight razors for almost nothing.

Read on here as much as possible. Look at posts with pictures and determine from the majority if the pictures are good or bad, etc. etc. etc.

Well, that's about the meat of the advice I've been given in the past. Hope it helps.


Glen F

Welcome to the forum.

My advice to someone starting out is to contact one of the forum members like Bill Ellis and get yourself a razor you know will be quality and shave ready. I would stay off of Eboy until you become more experienced.

Thanks, Glen. While I was aware that there were gentlemen here who sold the shave-ready razors, I did not know that they also sold "practice" razors.

Also, I actually hit 2 flea markets early this morning. Sadly, neither one had any vintage straights.

Hi Kyle, and welcome.

You might think about getting a nice new or old shave ready razor instead of practice one. You can ask here if someone has a nice used razor for sale, that way you'll have a benchmark for sharpness, and a great shaver. You will pick up stroping and honing along the way...

have fun,
Nenad

Kyle, welcome to the club. Ebay is your best bet for almost anything. including straight razors. Most razors are best bid on individually. Every now and then you may find a few or a lot of three or four at a time. You want to look for razors that show either little or at least proper honing wear. Buy brands from Gemany, England or U.S.

Glen

Guys, I got the impression he doesn't want to risk ruining a quality razor but he wants to practice honing. I could be wrong.

I know when I got my cattaraugus from Lynn I still wanted something else to practice on. I started with some pakistani razors given to me and eventually I got a few razors that others didn't consider worth their effort to restore.

I personally have 1 'practice' razor left but I'm waiting on a response back to someone else I offered it to before I offer it up.

Glen F

Welcome Kyle,

Your welcome to PM me anytime you have trouble. Here is a little light reading while we hunt down a razor for you....

http://www.en.nassrasur.com/razorcentral/index.html


Alan