Thread: Tips on Ebay buying?

Shoot! Boy do I look like a newbie.... How do you guys get the quotes from other people in those slick gray little boxes?

Originally Posted by mrbison

Shoot! Boy do I look like a newbie.... How do you guys get the quotes from other people in those slick gray little boxes?

click quote on their posts (bottom right corner of the box) and it'll bring up a reply box. from there you can select exactly what you want to quote in your reply by choosing which text you'd like in the quote boxes

A new member recently sent me a "restored" and "shave ready" razor he bought off of ebay. This seller has an excellent reputation as far as the deceptive feedback system of ebay is concerned. He described all the right tools and the elaborate process he used to restore the edge of the razor to shave ready condition. He described the bevel as being highly polished for a comfortable shave. He also had the temerity to describe the razor as being restored to a "mirror finish." His photography skills did a pretty good job of hiding the truth.

When I received the razor, I was shocked at just how bad the razor was. It was obvious that he had butchered the faces of the blade with a WIRE bristle Dremel and made no attempt to remove the scratches. Yes he HAD polished the bevel--it was shiny, but then again when you looked straight down onto the edge, that too was shiny. When you hone a razor, you are converting the edge from a "U" shape to a perfect "V" shape and the apex of that "V" will not reflect any light, yet the edge of this guy's hone job was the shiniest part of the razor. In other words, the razor was completely, utterly, dull. Worse, his Dremel work had ruined the spine. Yup, he Dremeled the spine and made it extremely variable in thickness. He honed with tape and so did nothing to correct the damage he had done.

It took me a long time to fix that razor, first on the buffer and then on low grit hones. I had to remove a lot of steel from the spine to make it flat but it still looked ugly because of the extreme variations in the hone wear along the length of the spine due to his Dremel job.

I started a thread complaining about the quality of this guy's work, but that's not allowed here. Praise is allowed but we are not allowed to badmouth the work of vendors, even if they are not members here and only sell on ebay. I didn't realize we couldn't criticize ebay sellers but I do recognize, and acknowledge, the justification for that policy. I simply didn't want others to fall prey to this guy who clearly has no idea what a properly honed razor is. For that reason, all I can tell you is the following:

If you are new, DON'T TRUST EBAY SELLERS! Your limited reading here on SRP does not prepare you for all the crap these sellers can and will foist off onto you.

Ouch. That's a harsh lesson. Come to think of it, the only time I have ever used ebay, I got ripped off for $40. In light of your picture, I think I'll stick to sites like this one and "whipped dog"...

As for that seller, all that bad karma will probably catch up with them sooner or later. (Maybe they'll get ripped off on ebay by the guy who stole my $40.)

Just hit the Quote button.... It just enters the text with HTML tags. It looks like you edited the text, and took out one of the right brackets.

I am also learning to hone, but you should have a shave ready razor to compare, and also the only real tried and true test of if a razor is shave ready, is to shave with it. If you have no experience shaving technique with a straight razor, then you'll never know if there is a problem with the razor, or with the honing, or with your shaving technique.....

Originally Posted by mrbison

Shoot! Boy do I look like a newbie.... How do you guys get the quotes from other people in those slick gray little boxes?

...Enjoy!!

Originally Posted by mrbison

Thanks for all the tips on buying old razors everyone. I think I'll keep my eye open for a good deal on a vintage razor to get my honing skills up to snuff with - but in the meantime get a hold of a decent one to actually learn the shaving art with. That way I won't have to punish my face by learning to hone and shave at the same time either...

That's the voice of wisdom.

Charles

PS -- if you want to go off the deep end, read the Wiki on "using microabrasive sheets". You can set yourself up with a sandpaper "sharpening shop" for pretty cheap. But -- as you say above -- experiment on the razor you're _not_ shaving with.

I also recommend Larry at whipped dog, I acquired one of his razors by accident and it is a great shaver.

Geek

There’s no doubt you can get ripped off on ebay. I have to admit, it’s a shame someone would go through that much trouble to disguise and possibly crop a photo to rip someone off with that monstrosity of a razor. That’s why I said you always run the risk of getting something you will be sorry for. One thing I forgot to mention about buying on ebay is to see if the seller will accept returns. Sure, you may be out of the return shipping charges but, it beats being out of your entire investment.

Let me apologize if I was misleading to those just getting into straights about buying on ebay. When I see a razor on ebay or anywhere else, I see its potential….Not what it is. When I got into it, about a year and a half ago, within the first week I dove in head first by honing a razor I bought 21 years earlier when I was about 22 years old. It was a razor I bought that was not shave ready, tried shaving without it being honed, and OUCH!...It went in a drawer until a year and a half ago. Since then, after only a couple of months, I started buying on ebay. Since I learned to hone first, I wasn’t so concerned about shave ready razors. IF YOU ARE LOOKING FOR A SHAVE READY RAZOR BUT, DO NOT KNOW HOW TO HONE IT, DO NOT BUY IT FROM EBAY! I can’t agree enough with those statements saying that most ebay razors are not shave ready. After about 30 of them, I have yet to get one that is shave ready.

Once again, I apologize if I have misled anyone.

mrbison,

I'll also send you a PM on this in case you don't come back to this post. I'll post a thread in the "Show and Tell" section of the forum showing my late 1700's Clarke & hall and a few others. It's about half way down the forum's page under the blue header saying "The Gallery - Eye candy".

Originally Posted by Utopian

If you are new, DON'T TRUST EBAY SELLERS! Your limited reading here on SRP does not prepare you for all the crap these sellers can and will foist off onto you.

For the inexperienced, ebay can be laden with pitfalls. However it is worth pointing out that there are a large number of sellers on ebay who are completely honest.