Thread: Does anyone know if the razor shown below is garbage?

List,shmist. Unless its a pakistani I wouldn't discount any razor. Keep in mind that there were thousands of companies producing and selling razors. No one can give you a list of whats good or bad. Unless someone has one of every name ever produced and even then you might have a bad sample so forget about specific recommendations as this is bad and this is good. Ask where it was made. If its one of the good geographical sources go ahead and take a chance if the price is right. remember the old prospectors had to work hard and do alot of digging to find gold and they took chances and you have to also to unearth the treasures they are there.

This looks like one of the cheap knock offs like the Masters USA made in Pakistan. I would not recommend buying it. I've had a few sent to me for honing and they are way substandard.

Good luck.

Lynn

Originally Posted by thebigspendur

List,shmist. Unless its a pakistani I wouldn't discount any razor. Keep in mind that there were thousands of companies producing and selling razors. No one can give you a list of whats good or bad. Unless someone has one of every name ever produced and even then you might have a bad sample so forget about specific recommendations as this is bad and this is good. Ask where it was made. If its one of the good geographical sources go ahead and take a chance if the price is right. remember the old prospectors had to work hard and do alot of digging to find gold and they took chances and you have to also to unearth the treasures they are there.

Maybe it's a good idea if we start a section SRR (Straight Razor Review). Someone has to make some sort of standard form with all kind of questions which we fill in, and we add a picture of the razor we just reviewed. In that way the section SRR can become (overtime) a great resource for razors. And when someone wants to know something about a particular brand he can look in that section and read 1 or more reviews about particular razors of that kind.

Just an idea!
michel

Sounds like a very good idea.....if it's not listed in the review, THEN we can bug the crap out of everybody including Lynn, to tell us whether it's good or not.

I like bigspedur's advice...best bet is probably to go by geographic region, price, and overall condition.

Excellent idea!

I'll start.....

Maestro Livi = good
Paki = bad

next?

-whatever

-Lou

I was thinking a bit more in the line of this: http://www.coffeereview.com/allreviews.cfm

michel

I will agree with Lynn on this one.

One of the things to look for on a new razor or used is the stamping on the tang. If it has no stamping on the tang then run away. Dovo and TI both put stamps on their blades. The stamps will usually indicate the country of origin or at least the region ie Solingen, Eskiltuna, USA, Spain (Filarmonica)
Just because there is etching on the face of the blade or on the handle means nothing.
There is a massive amount of worthless new razors being sold on Ebay and other places. Always ask here first, we are happy to help!

Originally Posted by michel

Maybe it's a good idea if we start a section SRR (Straight Razor Review). Someone has to make some sort of standard form with all kind of questions which we fill in, and we add a picture of the razor we just reviewed.

Originally Posted by Razorburne

Sounds like a very good idea.....if it's not listed in the review, THEN we can bug the crap out of everybody including Lynn, to tell us whether it's good or not.

I think it's a good idea as well. Perhaps you could add a picture, too.

But (there's always a "but", isn't there )... keep in mind that the info on the site is contributed by the community... it's kinda like a commune... everyone does their share. The "we", "somebody", etc. you mention is really "you". So, if you want such a feature, go ahead and organize doing it. Feel free to solicit volunteers to help and I'm sure everyone else will contribute suggestions and whatever info they have handy. I'll help in any way I can.

My $.02 is.... this is a pretty challenging task... here's a couple thoughts that pop immediately to mind...

• There were hundreds of manufacturers and thousands of different models of razors marketed in the past 150 years...
• Evaluating a razor is about as subjective as evaluating a cologne... ie, what I think is great could be quite mediocre to you.
• Two identical model razors may shave entirely differently (because they were made from different lots of steel, or were hardened by different craftsmen, etc.), not to mention the size thing... for example, I have two identical Bismarck razors except for size (one is 5/8 and the other 6/8) -- one shaves great, the other only so-so.

It might not be too tough to implement. It appears that Badger & Blade has a working product review system and that they use the same type of bulletin board system, Called vBulletin. It's PHP based, and likely allows features to be 'plugged in' with minimal effort. The product review system may be something that the B&B folks wrote, but it's more likely that they either turned this feature on in vBulletin, or downloaded the module (possibly a piece of open source code). If so, I don't see why it couldn't be used here. System admin or Lynn, comments?

- John

Originally Posted by Namdnas

... it's more likely that they either turned this feature on in vBulletin, or downloaded the module (possibly a piece of open source code). If so, I don't see why it couldn't be used here. System admin or Lynn, comments?

- John

John,

Lots of these things are great ideas... but it requires some peole to lead the activity and do the work required to make it happen. To be blunt, I'm not volunteering to champion this one. Why you ask? Because I put considerable thought into it some time ago and I didn't see a clear set of criteria to use for the evaluation so that razors reviewed by a broad cross section of users, with varying levels of competency, could be compared in a meaningful way. Even Scarface's "Maestro=good, Paki=bad" system would likely meet with some problems... some people would rate the Paki=good, lol.

If the reviews/ratings can't be compared, then what's the point.

Further, S/W was not raised as the issue. As you implied, most forums do not write their own software... they use off-the-shelf stuff as much as possible. All vBulletin forums have access to the same software (provided they pay their maintenance fees) and, as I said, I'll help and even install whatever software is needed.

The discussion of how to meaningfully rate/rank razors is an old discussion that has mentions in many threads, both here and on the Yahoo SRP forum. I don't mean to be negative (although it probably sounds like I am being that)... I'm just openly admitting I don't see a solution which works. There are just too many variables for my poor old engineer's brain to deal with... razor condition, razor size, razor sharpness, reviewer's technique, reviewer's beard type, reviewer's shave prep, stropping, etc., etc., etc. Since many razor models are relatively rare, most would have 1 reviewer at best... so "average rating" isn't possible. If you think the answer is to have them reviewed by "highly qualified" people (eg, a honemeister), how would you establish who meets that criteria?