I think this is a good time to tell my story, since I think I am the most recent honester to offer free honing. My story is quite similar to Utopians, but has a totally different ending.

About 4 months ago I started to offer free honing to newbes and then to students, getting ready for school. The only thing I asked was for them to pay the return S&H fees. I thought this would be a good opportunity for me to get the experience I needed to be able to hone at the next level. I had already been offering to help members individually by sending them pm's, but it seemed to be a little slow to me. After the offer for free honing was made the numbers changed dramatically. Over the last 4 months I did 133 razors, before I had to stop doing them for free and start charging.

Out of all the razors, that were sent to me, only 3 were in what I would call the 3 month "time to re-hone" condition. The rest were somewhere between that and ebay specials, chipped edges, frowns, haven't seen daylight in 40 years and couldn't cut through butter if it had to. But out of the 133 razors only 1 went back that was beyond hope. Not bad, considering some of the stuff I saw over that 4 months.

Most of the razors sent in were in real need of just a good cleaning. So some of the blades needed sanding and almost all needed polishing. Scales on some had to be sanded and polished and all of this was done for free. Since this offer was supposed to be to newbes and students, I saw one show up in an ad that was sold as shave ready 3 days after I sent it back.

I too was advised by some that this was not a good marketing plan. At the time I couldn't understand why, but now it is crystal clear. After the "FOR SALE" sign went up on one of the razors I did I decided to do an inventory of where I stood on this adventure. Here are the facts!

As I was receiving packages in the mail I would take the money, that was in the package, and put it in an envelope. It was interesting to see how many came with no money, some would have $2 inside and the postage on the outside was $7.23. After a while, I requested $5 to cover S&H and got it most of the time.

So I kept the receipts from the PO and bubble envelopes, they added up to a little over $300. When I opened my envelope to make a deposit, it had $95. Without counting the .08/mile for gas and standing #12 in line with 2 desks open and each person steping up not having a clue what they were doing, I was at least ($205.00) in the red. Not a very good marketing plan.

Here are the breakdowns in the razors sent:
26 members x 1 razor = 26 razors
40 members x 2 razors = 80 razors
9 members x 3 razors = 27 razors

And to get them back:
Package 75 x $1.10 = $ 82.50
Postage 75 x 2.35 = 176.25 This is the avg. min. cost
Mileage 16 x .08 = 36.00
Total = $294.75

None of these costs include the expense of stones and other equipment necessary to do service at this level. Those costs are very subjective at this point, but I can tell you that most of us who do this to make money have in excess of $1,000.00 invested. This also does not take into consideration the time spent on each individual razor or the time spent in preparing the packaging to ship it back plus the time at the PO.

It was interesting to see my mail slow down considerably once I started charging for services. This of course was to be expected. This endevour has, in fact, let me establish myself in the honing community as a competent honester. I have made friends with some interesting individuals and learned quite a bit about honing and restoring razors. I still offer free services to some in real need and of course free honing, plus the cost of shipping, to anyone on active duty in the military.

So that's my story and I'm sticking with it!

Enjoy!

Ray