Originally Posted by
DaveW
Razors have taken the same twisting and turning as tools have. Ebay has pretty much totaled the ability of a lot of antique dealers to buy tools at swap meets and then clean them up a little bit and sell them to end users. There used to be people who reconditioned hand planes and sold them, because you could find the planes themselves for a few bucks and a lot of users would be willing to pay $50+ for something that was restored by a guy in a garage with some initiative.
Now, a dirty "as found" user will be marked for sale either at $25-50 or sometimes (often) a moon surface price that nobody would pay, because everyone is aware that someone will pay for tools. Most of what I see when I go to flea markets is junky tools made for "gentlemen" woodworkers, and priced like the better grades of tools, and with the market as organized as it has become, if you want to get anything better, you'd better be at the flea market before people even start to set up because the guys who go to the flea to resell will often know regular flea marketers well enough to take good stuff off their hands before it ever gets on the table.
A couple of years ago when I stated shaving, I thought it was odd back then how you could just get a $10 razor, hone and do a light cleanup and sell it for $40. There are still deals to be had from time to time (as a user), but it's not like you can just go out and do it in volume and make it worth your time if you already have a job that pays well.
What also strikes me, and I'm not trying to offend anyone by this, is how antique razors can be buffed and puffed into a big rounded glom of shininess, completely removing crisp lines and patina, and people will pay a lot extra for them. In the world of most antiques, such a move completely ruins any value to all but the most inexperienced buyer. Things are original once, and after they're changed, never again.
Anyway, you can still go to fleas and find straights from time to time, but getting good very clean ones on ebay for $10 on a regular basis..good luck.