I was wondering why these brand of straight razor are so expensive : Wade & Butcher, Dubl Duck and Filarmonica? What make them so special?
Thx.
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I was wondering why these brand of straight razor are so expensive : Wade & Butcher, Dubl Duck and Filarmonica? What make them so special?
Thx.
Personally, nothing makes them so special. They are expensive because the demand is there, they get talked up much, and the supply is limited especially NOS razors. Arguably there are other razors that will shave you just as well but are not as well known.
Bob
Bob hit the nail on the head,
My favorite blade to shave with is a Genco 6/8 head barber.
It takes a sharp smooth edge and holds it, it was a $15 dollar eBay special,
great shaves are not measured in dollars or brands :chapeau
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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..
There are alot of other good brands that i am discovering.
Granted i do really want a wade and butcher and a TI.
But i think ill stick to more affordable brand until i can find a steal on the better names
Yea, they are "known" brands that proved they can deliver deliver and they have been talked up. Other lesser known brands have been mentioned to hone and shave well but not talked up as much so basically ignored.
I would almost bet that when these prized razors were to be had for $50 these other less well known brands could be had for $5.00. There was still a price differential.
Popularity, flavour of the month or what is in vogue, which ever you want to call it has a lot to do with it. That is the difference between must haves and just as good also rans.
Bob
I'm with Glen and Pfries on this one... Glen because of the tried and true brands and Pfries because of the Genco...
Tried and true doesn't always mean expensive, but it does mean consistent quality and shaves. The brands the OP mentioned used to, as Glen noted, fall into the category of tried and true while inexpensive. The Genco mentioned by Pfries is definitely tried and true but still falls (for now) into the inexpensive category... though I have to admit, the last few Genco's I've bought have come up in price a bit from my first few.
There are other great brands of razor out there which I'm sure shave well and smooth, but do they do it consistently from one razor to the next? That is the million dollar question...
Its all personal choice. Why do people buy $250k cars if they can go to the store with a Hyundai? Its all about taste and value and perception. There are very few things that we NEED, but lots of stuff we WANT. If somebody I knew was looking for a straight and had little money I would tell em to get an old vintage shave ready or whipped dog. It will shave, but if you got a couple in your pocket, why not!
Sorry, but the numbers just don't lie,, You can talk all ya want about Popularity, Flavor of the month, taste, value, and perception and I will call BS every time...
There are simply certain brands that are better then others, they consistently deliver the goods, There are many more Brands out there than those 3, but those 3 are without a doubt on the list, and have been long before this forum, or even the Internet existed...
Again with the qualifier "In good Shape"
Don't mis-understand and think I am saying that these are the only "Good" brands and that other brands are "Bad" that is not what I am saying at all, in fact out of the over 10k razors that I have honed, I have never seen a Vintage razor in good shape not shave well, but there are certain brands that are just better...
If tried and true Gencos were well acknowledged they would be the same price as those other brands both then and now but they weren't and aren't now. So there must other reasons to explain the differences. I agree now that Genco has been talked up a bit more the prices are increasing too. That is not a reflection on Gencos quality which they always had.
The price is based on what the market will bare and what the "perceived" value is.
Bob
You're arguing the Chicken and the Egg Bob
In this case however the Reputation was built way before the Internet :) These razors were sold originally with very little price difference between them all, only the scales etc: had a value difference, but over time certain brands rose to the top of the heap..
I dunno... I would think that, to at least a certain degree, the sheer numbers of Gencos in existence helps lend to a lower price tag, both then and now... after all, they were at one point the largest razor manufacturer in the world. Also, the fact that while they give fantastic shaves and are made from great steel, they weren't very ornamental, again reducing costs to make and to buy.
DD's are usually VERY ornamental, so people think "OOH! SHINY!" and immediately attach a particular value (not saying that DD's don't deserve to be considered top quality). W&B's age lends to their reputation, in terms of perceived value (again, not saying they shouldn't be in the top tier of razors), so people tend to flock to them.
Genco's, while plain in nature, are made from a consistent quality of fine steel (like Sheffield steel) from around the northeastern US and are great workhorses in general. The fact that they were so abundant on top of being inexpensively made and made with consistently great quality, by comparison to some manufacturers, means they are less rare than W&B, DD or Filly's, which can drive down their perceived value...
Supply and demand effects prices as much as perceived quality/value; if Ferrari's were overflowing the lots they wouldn't cost more than a middle class American house.
But that could also be, as Glen put it, chicken and egg; the perceived value drops if it seems no one wants them.
That's exactly my point... there are WAY more Gencos than DD's available, so that could be a factor of why the high price tag for DD's and not Gencos... Not saying DD's haven't proven themselves to be world class (they have). The same is true of W&B and Filly's...
Again, this is all just speculation on my part...
Not all DDs are "ornamental", consider the DD Special No 1. My guess would be same quality steel as the fancy Goldedges and such. Ornamental has nothing to do with the quality of the shave. Yes they are more expensive to produce because of the ornamentation and eye candy rightly is priced higher. Again nothing to do with the ability to take and hold a fine edge.
Yea the scarcity of certain razors naturally increases the price over similar more commonly encountered ones. That adds to the wow factor but speaks nothing of the ability to take and hold a fine edge either.
Bob
Yea, no doubt reputations were made before the internet. Just how reputations are made consists of a few factors not just performance of a certain task alone. There is good advertising/marketing that may enhance a products reputation beyond what it really deserves in relation to performing it's primary function. If it is hyped enough and the hype is repeated enough it becomes a almost fact. The whole thing is much more complicated than the reputed ability to perform a single function well.
The older you get the more jaundiced you get toward hype but still buy hyped products because what the hey, you can treat yourself. Been guilty of that myself but can separate the wheat from the chaff while doing it.
Bob
Oh, I'm not saying that ALL DD's are ornamental, but the majority are. Just like not all Genco's were plain. My main point was simply the abundance of one vs. the other.
Like I said before, this is speculation on my part, having only shaved with one semi shave ready W&B, and no DD's or Filly's... I have, however, shaved with 13 Genco's, and all have given fantastic shaves once brought to shave ready. I have no doubt whatsoever that the brands mentioned by the OP belong in the world class list, though. But, my point is I haven't heard, yet, of someone saying they got a bad shave from a properly shave ready Genco either. For an inexpensive yet consistently good quality razor that always performs as it should, it's a win-win.
I guess what I'm saying is that if a Genco isn't up to par with one of the brands the OP mentioned, what makes it so? Obviously, they were well enough received to become the largest razor producer in the world, so something had to be going right... If not, I imagine they would have folded and closed up shop or at least never gotten as big as they did.
don't forget George wostenholm razors. They generally go for some bucks as well and have been around since around same time frame as w&b and mine shaves great! otto deutsch razors seem the same at least in my marketplace go for right below what a w&b goes for and once again one of the best quality shaves I haveever received from any of my razors. I also have a hibbard spencer and Bartlett that is one of my older razors and is built like a tank extremely high quality steel... It isn't honed yet so haven't shaved with it but I would argue it would probably shave as good as a w&b or a wosty. Really wanna get it honed lol...
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.
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.
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.
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?
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*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.
I can't speak for the DD or the Filarmonica, I don't own either,,,,,
but;
It's a known fact, that the Wade & Butcher will hone its self if given 48 hours of rest between shaves,,,,hell, if you give it 72 hours between shaves, you don't even have to strop it. :beer2:
The cream of the crop Razors will never go down in value.
As a former Gun Collector I look back to the late 1950s/60s,back than you could buy from the NRA,sent thru the USPS, surplus colt 1911 A1s for 65.00,garands,50.00,you could buy vintage colt SAAs for 200.00,win. 86s for 150.00,sears sold Belgian made browning O.Us for 300.00 (brand new) Mauser 98s at the emporeum of all places for 29.00.
In the words of Will Rodgers: buy land, they do not make it anymore:)
The rarer models in NOS condition of almost any out of production consumer good is collectable and collectors are speculators not really interested in the using of said consumer goods. I fully understand that but that is not an indication of the quality of the product.
Bob
From a newb perspective, my only reviews of old razors and what to buy has been the internet, namely this forum and a couple of others. So far every purchase iv made is with a search here and after seeing "great shaver" from a few apparently independent sources it does go a way to deciding whether to go ahead with a purchase. W&B and Filarmonica are repeatedly mentioned as being great vintage razors. IMHO it's similar to "non car people" knowing that Ferrari's and Lamborghini's are good cars from popular reputation. "Car people" know that there's LOTS of great cars out there and which make and model are truly magnificent although our personal preference leaves us biased.
Collectors come in two groups (1) from the investment, I'll pay the price it dosn't matter, I'll make a profit on it when I resale it. (2) I want, love it, need it to complet the set, etc.. and depending on how you feel about it, got to have it, I can go without it, watch and see if the pric comes down, then that can also determine how much you are willing to pay. I have 9 straights and have never paid more then $10 for any one of them and they all take the hairs off my face, some of them need more kind words (and work) then the others to beenused a second time and that is were quality and knowledge come in to play. IMHO.
Rich
For the past 20 or so years this country has been in a collecting mania which has caused prices of everything collectible to rise dramatically. Folks are looking for new things to collect, unknowns so they can get in on the ground floor before the prices start to go up. Razors have been discovered I'm afraid to say.