Thread: Help me choose a razor

I am by no means an expert, not being any further along than you are in this new endeavour/hobby. I will tell you a couple things that I've learned while lurking:

1/ If you can, find someone local who can help you. I was fortunate enough to locate someone within the province of Nova Scotia who is on this website, and who hones and restores/repairs straight razors (as well as regularly shaving with them), and he has been quite helpful to me. He also had a few razors for sale, and was able to combine a razor and strop together as a package deal. Thanks to IronsideGNR. I plan to get a second razor from him so I can rotate them (as well as protect my silly a$$ from beginners stropping mistakes).

2/ From my knowledge and experience, the first three listed are all reputable brands. The others... are questionable simply because *I* don't know them, and as such I'd steer clear. If you buy new, you will probably still need to have the razor honed as it usually doesn't ship ready to shave... at least not shave well.

3/ Many on here will direct you to either the SRD website/store or to a gentleman named Larry at whippeddog.com, who can get you a shave ready razor and strop for a good price.

4/ It's strongly recommended that newbies avoid eBay as there are things that you may not see as a problem that REALLY are. There's a post here called "eBay 101" that you might want to browse before going eBay-ing.

5/ It's also advisable to look over the list of "Razor Brands To Avoid" so you don't buy something that looks really good, but is only nice to look at, something the community here refers to as a RSO or Razor Shaped Object.

I think that just about exhaust my limited knowledge and advice. Others will post more information to correct me if I'm wrong.

Hope this helps a little.