Quote Originally Posted by paulp View Post
MattCB, that book "Straight Razor Collecting - An Illustrated History and Price Guide" must be quite a collectors item…I've checked a couple of places on line and its up around $200. Ouch.

ScienceGuy thanks for the tip on Tweedale's Directory. I'm putting it on the list.
Aside from the fact that the 'Straight Razor Collecting' book is out of print and extremely expensive, I've yet to see an excerpt from it that wasn't full of factual errors. It is probably a good source of pictures of old razors, but any information about them should be considered with a salt-shaker handy.

Unfortunately there isn't really a single, excellent 'spotters guide'. Tweedale's directory is, without doubt, the best for histories, but its focus is on the companies and not the products, so it won't be as useful for identifying marks or design features (though not always).

Anything which purports to be a 'price guide' should be viewed as an attempt by the authors to maintain the values of their own collections and nothing more. There actually are collector markets with steady, identifiable pricing, but antique razors are not one.

(Full disclosure, I'm cited in the 2nd edition of Tweedale's Directory and provided several pictures of old razors)