Thread: Why is boar so much cheaper?!

Originally Posted by Mijbil

Wolverines have been known to kill moose. Moose. 8 feet tall. And they regularly kill deer.

But I digress. So, I'm excited about this new hone I ordered......

.... Now I'm more scared of my brush than my razor...

There is no argument at all that badgers are bad motherf******s. Aggressive meat-eating machines with sharp teeth and claws and an attitude to match. It's like they decided that shaving brushes had to be made out of hyena hair or something like that.

But I always thought that a badger was not being killed for the specific purpose of allowing me to have a fluffy badger hair shaving brush. Now, if this is true, it leads to two possibilities. Either they are killing the badgers for other reasons, like meat, and they harvest the hair at the same time as the rest of the animal. (Don't really have any problem with that, and it's better than letting the rest of the animal go to waste.) Or they are not killing the badgers at all but are . . . um . . . shaving them? How would you do this, given the badger's well known temper? And another thing, what kind of brush do you use for shaving a badger?! Just kidding!

To answer your question about HOW to shave them, JeffE. Large amounts of BUFFALO TRANQUILIZER.

That's my guess.

All right, now the next time I have an hour to waste on YouTube, I've got to look for a video of somebody shaving a badger. Or trying to.

~Rich

Whoa, check this out -- answers to all of your burning badger shaving questions!

Source for Badger Hair - The Shave Den

Bottom line -- yes, most of the badger hair seems to come from China, but some does get produced in Europe. No, the badgers are not killed just for their fur. But yes, the badgers are killed for their meat and then the furs are sold to other people who clean it, sort it and turn it into badger hair knots.

hmmm,, some interseting stuff there, but mostly just back and forth, and claims for both sources....it *seems* that the bulk comes from hunted badgers in China, because they are considered a pest there and they have a government organized enough to gather up all the pelts from individual badger murders (j/k) BUT at least one company, Semogue, uses farmed, sheared badger hair from Europe. And Plisson's website says quite clearly that their most expensive brushes ($250+) are European badger hair and the cheaper brushes ($100-$200) are Chinese. But what we really want to know is, what about the brushes from the companies we all use - Rooney, Simpsons, Vulfix, Kent, Omega, etc? Someone who runs a shop and sources these brushes direct from these companies could maybe ask the rep when they have a chance?

Well, if you compare the cost of boar knots vs. badger knots on for example the thegoldennib, you'll notice only $10-$20 difference.
So the difference in price of the finished product comes primarily from differences in the profit margins.
Remember these are somewhat niche and luxury items.
Perhaps it's not unlike the comparison between a charles shaw and ch. petrus, both are made from merlot grapes.