Originally Posted by FiReSTaRT
Actually a carbon steel blade is a bit easier to hone, but not by much with newer faster-cutting hones like Norton. The key is to get a quality blade that's made of good hard fine-grained steel and ground properly. If you're buying new, that will cost you anywhere from $60 to $250 for a production piece (more for custom pieces), depending on the size, grind and decorations. If you buy restored from Joe Chandler or Bill Ellis, you can get a restored shave-ready beauty for about $50. The best deal to get you going right away is the $170 starter set from Tony Miller, where you get a good DOVO razor (shave-ready), a hanging strop, a paddle strop (free pasting for SRP members) and some other items that will get you shaving immediately and keep you going.
By the way, there are a few younger guys. I'm 26, Jason's about 22-23, Sean is about the same age as Jason, Larry's 20 IIRC. I like the fact that we have a good mix of ages here.