Thread: Do we have a responsibility to buy new razors?

I think that the best we can do to assist the manufacturers is to promote straight edge shaving. The more shavers, the more buyers. There's a fixed number of vintage blades out there and new quality blades should always be able to find a market. I note that most of the posts are just talking about TI and Dovo. Isn't Boker also making new straights?

The new manufactured razors don't even have to be able to shave to continue to sell like mad. Look at the Zeepks and other junk razors for instance. As long as they continue to sell they will be available.

bj

Originally Posted by Stubear

To prove Bruno's point, if you search youtube for the clip of the DOVO manufacturing process you can see how quickly they make a batch of razors, and how fast they churn them out.

I do think that a large part of the cost is high margins, which they justify because its a speciality product.

In the early twentieth century Henry Ford had a revolutionary idea. Pay his workers $5.00 a day so that they could afford to buy the cars they were making. In early part of that century men died in the street fighting for an 8 hour day, 40 hour week and reasonable working conditions.

The post WWII years saw a brief few decades where there was what was known as a social contract. If the workers produced and looked out for the company the company would look out for them.

Men were making a wage that allowed them to support a wife and kids, have a home and send those kids to college. The "American Dream". Then time passed and entrepreneurs began moving those well paying jobs to distant lands where they could pay coolie wages and didn't have to adhere to safe or humane working conditions.

With the 'social contract' a distant memory the American Dream had become having three jobs to be able to afford to pay the rent and get your kids a job at Walmart or McDonalds. The entrepreneurs having killed the goose that laid the golden egg (American labor) they went to Wall St. to finish the job.

In Europe the standard of living for labor is far better than in the USA. The wages, health care, working conditions, vacation time and retirement are all far above that of the "greatest country" in the world and that may have something to do with the cost of TI or a Dovo.

Originally Posted by Bruno

Because they didn't sacrifice their quality just to stay in business

There are plenty vintage brands I don't like either, make no mistakes. There are a handful of old Sheffield brands that I like, and no German ones.

Razor manufacturers dropped like flies, not so long ago. Dovo had already decided to close down their manufacturing when that last US order came in. They decided to accept it sinc the machines were still there, and then afterwards there were some more orders which they accepted as well, since they had the machines going, and then there were some more, and they kept on making them.

TI probably has a similar story.
What made Dovo and TI survive in this business was luck. Had that US order gone to TI, Dovo would perhaps have folded their razor business.

EDIT: Another point worth mentioning: apart from the perceived quality issues, one of the major reasons I don't like new manufacture, is that fact that I like the shape of the old sheffield blades, with a smile and flowing curves. German razors tend to be really straight, and boring in design.

I like your point here about the old Sheffield straights. They do tend to have more "character to me than the old makers. As to the last point about Europe being better lifestyle wise, thats fine that it increases cost, but I don't feel I owe them anything or loyalty because both TI and Dovo have razors that are way over-priced. They can sell all their razors in Europe if the US refuses to buy them.
Also, I can tell you I recently bought the Dovo stainless in Ivory Micarta from SRD and love it. However, it does not center completely when it closes.
I do not blame SRD for this, and I have thanked them and bought more and more things from them because I like their product. I do however, blame Dovo and were it not for my new stainless kick, I would not buy another Dovo razor. My problem is self control.
TI in my opinion is over priced all the way around, because I have honed several now, and many of them either had warped blades, or scales that in my opinion were not worthy of a razor that cost. Brand wise though, I'll put the old American and English razor against any new production razor against anything out there for shaving, because in the end, all I care about is how smooth and comfortable the shave is.

No responsibility to buy new razors. Manufacturers have a responsibility to their customers to make a competitive product. If price and quality are right customers will buy.

I too bought a new TI. I bought one of the SRP TI's. It's actually good. I had them pick me one that looked OK. We all know about TI QC issues. I also buy new razors from Don and Lynn, most recently, A Bergisher Lowe which I love btw. It's just a classy looking razor. I got one with light brown bone scales, kind of inbetween....I don't have a Robert Williams, but I'm thinking about it....