Thread: New guy in town

hello all, I've never been an avid SR shaver myself, but I have been an active antique lurker for a while now. Recently (last 3 months or so) i've become very interested in straight razor shaving. I'm the kind of guy that researches the crap out of something before i dive in, but this time i kind of acted on impulse and bought 2 razors at an antique store.

One is a Geneva cutlery that came in a pyramid brand box, but doesn't have a pyramid on the tang. it has antlers with geneva cutlery above and below it. i'll post a picture when i get new batteries in my camera. Paid 11$ for it

The other one is from a company called Witte and Co., and below says Hoschied-Solingen on the tang, which i asssume is the area in which it was made. Paid 14$ for it.

Both are in excellent (from what i can tell, as im obviously not an expert) condition, and like i said, i'll post pictures of them probably tomorrow.

I'm also interested in learning how to hone, because i'm a do it myselfer.


expect to see a lot of me, and i always search forums before i post questions, so hopefully i won't have to post many noob questions.

Welcome to the str8 side.

Welcome to the fold and congratulations on biting the bullet . You will be happy. Looking forward to seeing more of you

PS: pictures of those blades would be great to see.

Hi there and welcome to SRP.

If you haven't already, be sure to check out the wiki and Lynn's notes. They are really worth the time.

I would encourage you to have both of your razors honed professionally from someone here on the classifieds before you start out. The edge on a razor is like nothing else, so if you are starting from scratch it's hard to know where you want to end up. It really is worth a few dollars to have two shave-ready edges. You can use one and then work on your honing and have the other as a reference. It might save some frustration and razor burn!

Welcome again, and may we all reach shaving Nirvana!

Welcome to Straight Razor Place!

as promised, here are the pics!

included are a pic of the mug and brush i got. i probably won't use the brush, since i'd prefer a new one, but it came with the mug, and i thought it was neat how it had the symbol for purity (before the nazis corrupted it with their idea of purity).

anyways, enjoy!

Congrats on your purchases! The Witte has some spine wear, but it should hone up nicely.
The Geneva will take some work to get the frown out, but it might become a nice shaver as well.
This might be heresy, but I have found that some razors will still shave ok with a slight frown as long as you can get the entire edge to sharpen. You might have to take a fair bit off the heel to get that one to work.

Congrats on getting started, and welcome to SRP!
Don't worry about asking noob questions. There is a lot of stuff to learn if you've never done this before.

yeah i had bought the geneva first, then when i came across the witte, i could tell that the blade on that one was in better shape.

I think i'll take the advice given and have the witte honed by someone who knows what they're doing, and use the geneva as a practice... maybe just for good measure i'll check the classifieds to get a good backup to the witte. i'm also about to start looking for a strop and some soaps as well, but the woman has me repainting a bathroom, so all in due time, hehe.