Thread: Wondering why these brand are expensive?

I believe that I read that Genco outsourced a lot of their razors. Some being made in Germany and other countries. While I'm not an expert, I do have one or two less than stellar Gencos.

Originally Posted by Johnus

I believe that I read that Genco outsourced a lot of their razors. Some being made in Germany and other countries. While I'm not an expert, I do have one or two less than stellar Gencos.

I don't think they outsourced them... They did however sell the company to Case, which is when they moved to Bradford, PA.

As for yours being less than stellar, in what way? I'm not saying I doubt you, I'm genuinely curious. Even with my mediocre honing skills, I'm getting great edges and shaves with mine. I had Glen hone two of them, one of which was really harsh at first, but mellowed after about the third shave and is doing great now.

Again, I'm not necessarily saying that Genco's are in the same class as the brands the OP mentioned, I'm just saying that I don't see how they fall short of said brands.

DD's are probably the least ornamental razors out there. They came with pedestrian scales and maybe some gold wash and some brass foil on the fancier ones. DD is really different than all the others because DD was not a manufacture. They were a retailer of barbering supplies and their razors were made by an unknown entity both in the U.S and Germany and France and some other places. They were originally marketed to the trade and became very popular with barbers and word of mouth from barbers is what really sold them to the public.

What makes these razors so highly in demand is they are so consistently great and hone consistently easy and hold their edge so consistently well. That is an unusual combination. What makes them so expensive is demand. Go back 10 years or more and DDs were not priced much higher than other brands.

Originally Posted by thebigspendur

DD's are probably the least ornamental razors out there. They came with pedestrian scales and maybe some gold wash and some brass foil on the fancier ones. DD is really different than all the others because DD was not a manufacture. They were a retailer of barbering supplies and their razors were made by an unknown entity both in the U.S and Germany and France and some other places. They were originally marketed to the trade and became very popular with barbers and word of mouth from barbers is what really sold them to the public.

What makes these razors so highly in demand is they are so consistently great and hone consistently easy and hold their edge so consistently well. That is an unusual combination. What makes them so expensive is demand. Go back 10 years or more and DDs were not priced much higher than other brands.

What makes that really amazing is the fact that they are so consistently great and hone consistently easy and hold their edge consistently well all the while bring manufactured on different continents and in different countries at various different times.

If that was the case and it could be, then it means that many different manufacturers in different countries at various different times were fully capable of turning out consistently good razors. If these unknown different manufacturers could do that then they could make the same consistent quality for others too. So much for what is in a name and the country of origin in that case.

Bob

I have 2 Dubl Ducks, a Puma / Dubl Duck, several Wade & Butchers, but no Filarmonicas.

Dubl Ducks and the W&Bs rose in price over the last 2 years. With reputation comes popularity. With Popularity comes price. If you watch carefully you can still find user quality W&B and an occasional Dubl Duck that needs a restore for a reasonable price, but Filly prices are astronomical.

My DDs and W&Bs are excellent razors and they compare well to my Otto Buschs, Mappin & Webb, Vintage Dorp & Voos. Now that being said I have 2 Acme razors (loved the Roadrunner and Coyote) that hold an edge and shave just as well. They even seem more rare than the Fillys.

Here is a list of other razors that I have found for excellent prices that are also comparable.

Electric (one of my favorites)
Boker
Griffon
JR Torrey
Morley & Sons
Henckels
Boker
Case
A. Feist Luna
Koken
Triton
J. M. Warren
Maher & Grosh
Sears
Wostenholm
Joseph Smith
Hibbard Spencer Bartlett
Beau Brummel
Genco

As long as a razor was manufactured with a good grind using quality steel it will be a quality razor. Most of these vintage razors were manufactured during a time when quality steel and razor manufacture was a matter of pride and reputation that a company traded on.

I'm sure this is true, but it is also the most depressing information on the forum....This means that in 2019 a NOS Filarmonica will cost over 5K. I feel sick.

Originally Posted by gssixgun

Sorry I disagree, with the above, they are proved brands, they Hone and Shave well, doesn't mean there are not other good brands, but those mentioned in good condition will deliver the goods..


I am eliminating the price factor, because a short time back (Less then 5 years) you could buy any of the 3 in NOS or Mint condition all day long for less then $50 and they were still "The Brands" to own because they deliver..

Originally Posted by WW243

I'm sure this is true, but it is also the most depressing information on the forum....This means that in 2019 a NOS Filarmonica will cost over 5K. I feel sick.

I would not bet on that. It is like extrapolating where the stock market and your particular stock will be in 2019. Like they say "past performance is not an indicator of future performance".

Bob

It was a weak early morning joke, but I don't see the prices dropping significantly unless there is a capital D Depression. If someone looks at Glen's information about the cost of NOS razors, there may be a whole new level of speculators, people who have no real interest in the razor just an interest in the return on investment end of things.

Originally Posted by BobH

I would not bet on that. It is like extrapolating where the stock market and your particular stock will be in 2019. Like they say "past performance is not an indicator of future performance".

Bob

When I do not know a lot about a product, I tend to go with a brand name that I recognize.
With product knowledge, you may be able to spend less and get a better value.

The brand name has value due to reputation.

Here is one example:
I was looking at inexpensive used cars some time back
(a) Toyota
(b) GM (rebranded Toyota, same model)

Using Edmond's as a reference, the GM sold for a lot less than the Toyota.

Jody

I'm going to get more general here.
Value* is determined, 100% entirely, upon how much the buyer is willing to pay against how much the seller is willing to sell for. That can -- and often is -- be swayed by such things as scarcity (supply and demand), quality of the goods et cetera. But those affect the buyers' and sellers' perception of value and thus the value only indirectly. At the end of the day, only the buyer and the seller determine the final value of the product.

Supply and demand in terms of raw scarcity does not determine value directly -- yes, I am retracting my previous position -- but, again, only does so indirectly by affecting the buyers' willingness to pay a given price. After all, if we have a widget I wish to own with only one seller distributing it for $100 each, then my only decision is "is that widget worth $100?". It's a $100 widget. But if the supply (especially the supply of sellers rather than the supply of the widgets themselves) increases to 2 and the new seller is selling the same widget for $99, I might not value the widget at $100 any more. Possibly ever again. It is now a $99 widget. But ultimately it is I, the buyer, who makes that determination. I might like the first seller for sentimental reasons and be willing to pay $100 for a $99 widget; it's thus still a $100 widget and the $99 seller is just underselling himself and without more buyers he loses.

An example of this is that I like Classic Shaving (GASP). I've had very good experiences with their fulfillment, customer service and even responses to feedback. I saw in them classic (pun) business practices being conducted in an internet world and I liked it. The result is that even though their prices are often higher, I will usually go with them unless they either don't carry what I'm after or the price at another vendor is significantly lower, enough to sway my sentimentality.

But at the end of the day the decision belongs to me, the buyer. Do I want to pay $100 for a $90 strop or not? Is the customer service and rapid fulfillment worth another $10?

The labor theory of value (the theory that the amount of work put into and thus quality of a good determines its value) is a popular fantasy of working men, myself included, to place our own sentimental value of our hard work as the measure of the economic value of the results of that work. It's a cute theory (Marx loved it; Communism is based almost entirely upon the LTV and without it quickly derails) but it's still wrong. Labor can, as mentioned before, affect value but it does so indirectly by altering the perceptions of the buyer and seller.

Which is the result of more labor, a vintage Ern or 40 Gillette Fusion cartridges? The Fusion cartridge is made almost entirely by machine; I think we all know the answer there. The labor becomes more specialized, to be sure, for the more modern item but there's a lot less of it. Well, I just payed $40 for an Ern sold on the classifieds here, and some fellow newbie on here from Virginia was just complaining about spending over $100 for a pack of 40 "cheap" multiblades. We may not like it but the market values "MOAR BLADEZ!!!1!1!111" much more than our wet shaving hobby!

I'm an internet developer by trade; I make websites. I put a lot of effort into them, sometimes extraordinary amounts of effort for what looks like a tiny change. But guess what? The perception to most end consumers is that it's free; no one feels the need to pay to visit any of my websites and I think they'd be downright insulted if I asked them to.

Look at a popular little game: Angry Birds. I can assure you that game did not take a lot of effort to originally make. Some, yes, but not enough to justify the huge multimedia empire it became. But it was fun, funny; good times for the whole family and all that. People loved it. Even though the supply was a potential infinite, people would still -- and continue to -- pay to play the full version of each new sequel Rovio rolls out. So neither supply and demand, nor the labor involved determined the value: "people loved it" was all it took to build a huge business empire.

Scarcity, craftsmanship, labor, reputation...these don't determine value. They only affect the one thing that does: how much are you willing to pay?

*NOTE: I am speaking only of economic, "price tag" value; "value" in terms of sentiment an artist or laborer may feel for his work is entirely different and is often times immeasurable. Those of us who make things feel an enormous amount of pride when we make something that's just plain right or even downright elegant or artistic, and the sentimental value we may place on our product at that point is beyond the measure of economics.