Thread: New guy from East Tennessee

Short version of my story. I've always been a collector of military bayonets and never gave much thought to razors other than remembering the barber using one to shave my neck back when I still got my hair cut in the 60s. Haven't had a haircut in probably 20 years though and like alot of folks, I just use a modern triple blade razor for the whiskers. Well my wife recently inherited a PILE of straight razors and other vintage shaving stuff from a long time collector. Hundreds of razors ! Some in really nice condition and in display cases, some complete sets of 7 that are marked with the days of the week, some fancy and appear to be very old and some that are rusty & don't look like they would cut butter. There's even a bag of what I assume are "parts razors" with just blades. just scales, or ones with broken blades. To put it bluntly we are overwhelmed with this stuff. Not a clue if we have a gold mine or a coal mine but my gut feeling is that quite a few of them are old and valuable. Her friend always told her his razors were his retirement fund. So here we are wondering where to begin with sorting through this stuff. I might keep some of them but we will likely sell the majority. Just want to make sure we know what we have before we take a beating on them so please don't make any offers to buy the lot or anything of that sort. That's not why I signed up. I belong to several hotrod & muscle car forums and find that the friendships formed and the information shared is worth more than money. Thanks for having me and I'll probably just hang out in the shadows for a bit and see what I can learn.

Welcome in neighbor, just bear in mind we do not do valuations/appraisals here on the forum.
Beyond that feel free to ask any questions you may have.

Thanks for the welcome ! Not really looking for appraisals as much as just info on what's collectible & what should be used to chop wood.. Tri-Cities huh ? Same here. Between Fall Branch & Jonesborough. This razor stuff is all new to us. My usual obsessions are gas & oil collectibles, muscle cars, & coin collecting. There is so much of this stuff it could be dangerous. Another hobby won't help my wallet much but I am fascinated looking at the ones we have. Here is just one example pulled at random from one of the large boxes full of stuff. The blades are marked KB extra on one side & Krusius Brothers Germany on the opposite side. Also a small number 47. I really like the look of bones on the scales. Is this a common design ? Any clue as to the age of a set like this ? This is also a good excuse to test my ability to post a picture...

Bluff City/Bristol here.
A close up of the tang and markings would be helpful, the scales are supposed to resemble bamboo.

Not good at closeups of shiny things without the flash being an issue but here's my attempt. Is there a good reference for identifying these things or is this the place to ask ? I am guessing we have at least a couple hundred razors, possibly more.

I live in Bristol on the Tn side and am wanting to get into straight razor shaving. I am very interested in possibly buying one from you. do you have contact info?