Thread: I think I've struck gold.

My grandfather invited me to have a look through his magic shed of wonder again the other day. I say shed, it's more like a warehouse!
It's full of WW2 bits and bobs, from all over the world.
He lets me have a quick look around every year or so, whenever he's in the country. In the last 2 years I have retrieved and revitalised an old Tilley Lamp and have restored a Primus stove from the brink of death to an almost perfectly working piece of history. (It has a pressure leak which I will be working on later today.)

Anyway, I digress.
Yesterday I found 4 (that's FOUR) drawers FULL of straight razors in their cases! Unfortunately there were many broken ones and none of them seemed to be in the correct cases. As it was getting late in the day I didn't get much of a chance to be very selective and just picked a couple of the cleanest ones and a couple of cases. I also grabbed a Russian shaving brush of some kind on the way out. I know exactly what I'm looking for when he's back over here next. I'll go and spend some time looking through them drawers and see what I can get hold of.

Hopefully these photos will work as upload seems to be disabled from the Tapatalk app.
Will take some more detailed images later on.

This is a direct comparison between my 2013 Solingen and my find.


What do people think about the way the blade tapers at the end. Is it a result of a few poor hones or an intentional blade shape on this particular style?
I remain unsure but I do know it is a fairly dull blade that is in need of some attention.

Wow - sounds like an amazing place he has there!

Re the blade taper, that's hone wear. Look at the spine above where the blade narrows. See how the flat part of the spine widens in the same area that the blade narrows? That indicates that whoever was honing this blade consistently added too much pressure to the toe, wearing down both spine and edge. If the edge was intentionally built to be a smiling blade, you could expect that the spine would follow a similar contour. Here there's a straight spine and a curving edge.

That's not to say that it can't be made into a good shaver. It just means that you'll want to send it to someone capable of dealing with a wonky blade.

You forgot to mention the adress, and when your grandfather is going on vacation? I think it's cool you still have a grandfather.. I never met one of them (he was german) and the other died whe I was young.. I own his skinning knife and 30.40 Craig though.

That's awesome! I have a couple razors from my grandfather as well. He gave me a few gillette DEs too. It's always nice to have something from a family member. I would send that razor to someone who deals with fixing hone wear like that. Happy shaving.

He lives abroad so only here once a year or so. It will be a long wait until I get to have another look in there. (On the plus side it's ALL mine at some point in the future.)
There was a box full of DE's next to it too so I will attack that next year when I know a bit more about them too.
I don't know if either of them are worth spending the money to get them honed as they will need a good going over to get them right, which will end up costing about as much as my new razor cost in the first place. :/

This is the other razor in a little more detail.

I think you've struck gold too. You will get to hang out with your grandfather and go through great heaps of razors!

Originally Posted by Noidle

I don't know if either of them are worth spending the money to get them honed as they will need a good going over to get them right, which will end up costing about as much as my new razor cost in the first place. :/

Get in touch with one of the guys advertising honing services in the classifieds. You may be surprised how inexpensive honing can be. It's a very different proposition from a full-on restore.

Where are you located? There may be someone local who'd be willing to give you a hand.

I'm in the UK currently.
My eventual plan is to migrate to the US but that won't be for many more years yet.
I expect it would be a logistical nightmare to send a couple of razors over to get honed and sent back.