Vintage vs modern straights?

I'm quite new to this so forgive the noob question. This thread isn't meant to ask which one is better, but more what makes them different?

My first impressions are that modern razors would probably have better metallurgy, while vintage would likely possess better grinds and workmanship since more craftsmen were building razors back then.

Also, why do certain vintage brands enjoy such high demand? I noticed that Wade and Butcher commands both admiration and premium. Filarmonica seems to sell for a bit of money as well. I'm sure these are all slick shavers but is this a case of swelling demand meeting dwindling supply?

For the record, my first razor is a modern 6/8 but I have two vintage shavers in the mail (a 5/8 Williams Sheffield and a 6/8 Christensen).

Vintage for me. They keep their value if you treat them well.

Vintage. A much greater variety available.

To answer Your question vintage razors are desired because quality went into there making and everyone likes holding a piece of history that has a storybehind it. Great starting razor s btw

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Originally Posted by KarloT

I'm quite new to this so forgive the noob question. This thread isn't meant to ask which one is better, but more what makes them different?

My first impressions are that modern razors would probably have better metallurgy, while vintage would likely possess better grinds and workmanship since more craftsmen were building razors back then.

Also, why do certain vintage brands enjoy such high demand? I noticed that Wade and Butcher commands both admiration and premium. Filarmonica seems to sell for a bit of money as well. I'm sure these are all slick shavers but is this a case of swelling demand meeting dwindling supply?

For the record, my first razor is a modern 6/8 but I have two vintage shavers in the mail (a 5/8 Williams Sheffield and a 6/8 Christensen).

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Yes, you would think modern razors would have better metallurgy but I think it is a draw on that. Now as then you need good quality steel not some special formula and they had the same good steel back then too. The edge might go to vintage because there were lots of workers with years of practice making and grinding razors but now there are few workers left at the old skill levels.

Some vintage razors demand much higher prices than others because they get talked up and are the flavour of the day if you are looking at pure shaving ability. A good razor is a good razor no matter the make imho. OTH rarer models in excellent to NOS condition are naturally in the premium price range.

Personally I like vintage razors because I enjoy putting them back into service and shaving with a piece of history. Enjoy your your new vintage razors.

Bob

The vintage razors were new at one time. Heck, the Fat Boy and Slim that I started shaving with in 1962 are now considered vintage, which probably means that I'm also vintage. While I have several vintage razors that I love and wouldn't part with, I enjoy modern artisan straights as I can custom order a blade to my own personal specifications, and recently I had the pleasure of visiting two artisans as they were working on my razor. I don't think that it has to be an either/or situation, and I will continue to enjoy both vintage and modern straights.

you have rad setting in, the vintage razors have been weeded through and what remains are the best of the best. 150 or so yrs ago razors cost a lot of money in the day, if you got a rep for making a bad ones you wouldn't sell many if any. the old sheffields were a bit softer than the german steel but I love them best. imho my wade wedges, greaves, Rodgers, Elliot's, wosty's, and stentons have given me plenty of enjoyable shaves. I wouldn't trade a single one of them for a dozen of the newest finest razors out there. I do have a few hollows left, but in the process of replacing them with wedges. and as mentioned above the history. how do ypu know if you have a pre civil war razor you didn't have one ole honest abe didn't use? I don't know but I have wondered how many faces some of mine have shaved.

I started with buying the new razors, and they are nice, expensive in most cases, and nothing wrong with them, think I bought 6 in total.

Now, antique and vintage all the way, IMO, they were better made by far and the shave I get from a vintage Filarmonica or antique Wade and Butcher Hollow ground razor is much better than most of the new production blades and far less expensive - far better bang for the buck and toss in the historical aspect as well.

And you just can't beat the badassness of shaving with a tool that was crafted nearly 200 years ago.

Particularly, when you get to share the information when someone foreign to SR shaving asks "You said 'vintage'. How old is that razor?"

You can buy handfuls of vintages for the price of a modern straight. You just need to know what to look for and play the market(avoid the hot, high $$$ models because Phrank is buying all them).

I think you have to distinguish the modern makers between 'volume' brands and artisans - there are probably far more artisans now than there were when razor making was at its heyday. Unfortunately some of the old brand names have been bought and used for less than stellar quality razors and some other well known brands appear to have variable quality. I'm thinking of the likes of Dovo, Thiers Issard and Wacker here, although I have examples of Dovo and Wacker that are extremely good razors.

The likes of Ralf Aust and Revisor get decent write-ups and of course there is Hart Razors in the US that tend to have their share of issues as well.

The thing to bear in mind is that a good blade will give you a good shave, regardless of its age. Personally, I don't believe I could tell the difference between old and new in a blind test.

I think of some of the higher quality razors, TI for example, the steel may be of a better quality than that of the razors made in the 1700s, 1800s, but when we get into the 1900s advances in metallurgy were already beginning. Kayser-Ellison, Bohler, among others were modern steels that were probably purer than the stuff that was being produced in the earlier days. OTOH, I'm no expert on steel quality. Someone like Mike Blue could probably give a better perspective on this.

Years ago he and Josh Earl, a custom razor maker at the time, got a bunch of old damaged blades donated for the purpose of analysing the steel. I donated an old Cattaragus with a large chip, but I can't recall exactly how far the project went in terms of coming up with any conclusions. I do think that the workmanship on some of the vintage production was more consistently better than what is coming out today.

From what I hear through the grapevine TI is sort of hit and miss in terms of the grinding. The old grinders are dyeing away and younger people are seemingly not coming in to take their place, or so I've heard. OTOH, I've go a dozen TIs and they are some of my favorite razors. From a cost standpoint if you go with vintage that is not a 'hot' collectible, such as Filarmonica, or some of the dubl ducks, but an obscure Solingen, Sheffield, or Swedish brand, you'll bet a fine shaving instrument that is going to be less expensive than a new TI in many cases.

Razor brands can take on a cult status and when they do the prices can become astronomical. The main thing with any of the vintage razors is to look for as good a condition as you can get. The closer to new the better.

My first razor was a New Dovo (I have since sold that) all mine are now vintage and the odd NOS, I do have a Bruno blade on order so I suppose thats a modern lol.
As mentioned its a nice feeling restoring and putting a vintage razor back into use.

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Originally Posted by Deerhunter1995

To answer Your question vintage razors are desired because quality went into there making and everyone likes holding a piece of history that has a storybehind it. Great starting razor s btw

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You mean, like this old Torrey?

On the box is written in fountain pen,

“Used by Roosevelt in the Badlands-lands Madora 1883-4.

Teddy Roosevelt went to the North Dakota, Badlands in 1983, to hunt Bison, fell in love with the land and bough a ranch, following the death of his mother and his wife, who both died on the same day on Febuary 14, 1884, he returned to Madora for solitude.

The razor is of the period, and while there is no provenance other than the writing on the box, it quite possibly could have been used by T. Roosevelt.

I paid around $15.00 for the razor and did not notice the inscription on the box until getting it home.
In many cases we are holding in our hand a piece of history a hundred, two hundred or more years old that can still be shave with well.

With the exception of a handful of custom makers, one has only to compare the quality of modern razor to vintage to see the detail of vintage razors, that cannot practically be produced today. Look at TI, Boker and Dovo, then compare price.

As has been said about antiques, “They, just have been better… longer.

Attachment 188490Attachment 188491Attachment 188492Attachment 188493Attachment 188494

Vintage all the way. Never tried a new production razor, but if I was going to, I think it would be a Ralf Aust, don't think I have heard one bad word said about them here.

Style shape and materials used. Many things have evolved/changed. Some things haven't changed. Do you want a tool that does it's job or something with a lot of Bling to brag about to someone else?

I can validate Jimmy's point about old steels. Unfortunately that "study" was here and gone fairly quickly and has others have pointed out, if the razor removes hair, the metal doesn't have a great deal of influence.

Modern metallurgy has developed alloys that are interesting in their refinement. For the day and knowledge they had, the old steel makers did very well producing a pure product that anyone making razors was willing to use. The analysis Joel got shows that the alloys were very clean steels, basically a carbon iron alloy with very little else in it. Modern steel production has refined the use of stain resistance and toughness while retaining good hardness characteristics but the steel ladles also get used for making rebar and construction or fabrication materials too. My best friend had to change his heat treatment regimen because the steel he ordered "met specifications" but contained so many tiny percentages of odd elements. The steel company didn't care about Californium because they didn't rise to the level of changing specs. In the end, we know more than "vintage" smiths, but have a different potential set of problems because of the industrial scale applied today.

If the edge geometry and honing are good, the blade will shave hair. Still a blade with a story, like the Roosevelt blade, wow, that gets my attention...more than being made from unobtainium.

If I might add to the original question and state, it's not just the shaving tool but the skill set that comes with a vintage blade. Bit of time travel in a sense when we can reach a 100+ years into the past, bring forth tools and knowledge to create a present day experience. Pretty damn awesome!

I would like to put a plug in for vintage Revisors. I have 5 or 6 and there ain't a bad one in the bunch..............

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Originally Posted by mrsell63

I would like to put a plug in for vintage Revisors. I have 5 or 6 and there ain't a bad one in the bunch..............

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Some weeks back, I asked good Obie to recommend me a third razor and he told me to visit the Revisor site. Admittedly, I spent more time in their vintage section vs their current production offerings.

When I first started I bought 2 new Dovo's. One lower end and one upper end, the difference was the scales. I have sold the upper and the lower end is getting sent to the give away guy (Str8razor) as soon as I get back from vacation. The only modern razor I will own after that is a Hart (don't really care for it) and a portland razor that I have not received yet. Out of 25 to 30 razors they are all vintage except those 2.

Something about using a razor that is 30-100 years old that can't be replaced. My personal take is vintage all the way. I like looking at the customs but I don't really care for all the crazy scales and blade designs so I avoid the as well. I like my razors very plain so vintage suites me well.

Little bit of extra info. I bought the Dovo's from SRD and they shaved just fine.

I have nothing but Vintage. I really like my smiling Sheffields.

Don't even know what a new razor is like. Never honed one, never shaved with one. In the near future I will have one of Silverloafs Kamisoris. Can't wait to try a razor that's never been on someone else's face before.

I think I read on the Revisor site that in the heydays of straight razor production there were 700 razor manufacturers in the Solingen area. Competition therefore was fierce and only the best could survive leaving no place for bad razors. The exact composition of the steel may not have been known by the makers but they knew how to get the best out of the steel they had. Science vs craftmanship.

I shave daily with razors dating from the new Aust back to the late 1700's. A well made razor will shave well if properly honed and stropped!

You taste will develop over time and finances. Whatever you choose, have it professionally honed.
The journey is in the learning.
~Richard

I would love a time travel machine so that I could skip forward 150 years and read rave reviews about the razors made by 'Charlie', 'Ali', 'Joel', 'Max', 'Birnando' et al. I hope they will be saying, they don't make razors like that nowadays.

Apologies to all those other modern makers who's name didn't come to me offhand.

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Originally Posted by UKRob

I would love a time travel machine so that I could skip forward 150 years and read rave reviews about the razors made by 'Charlie', 'Ali', 'Joel', 'Max', 'Birnando' et al. I hope they will be saying, they don't make razors like that nowadays.

Apologies to all those other modern makers who's name didn't come to me offhand.

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I'd like to skip back 200 years, if I had the wherewithal to do that and then come back to the present. I'd find out all the straight scoop on what the steel was, who the makers were, stop off in the twentieth century and find out the real tip about the Fillys, ducks, pumas, all of that.

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Originally Posted by JimmyHAD

I'd like to skip back 200 years, if I had the wherewithal to do that and then come back to the present. I'd find out all the straight scoop on what the steel was, who the makers were, stop off in the twentieth century and find out the real tip about the Fillys, ducks, pumas, all of that.

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Good luck with that. Many of these things were closely guarded secrets. Some old fart drops over dead and it is lost forever!:)

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Originally Posted by JimmyHAD

I'd like to skip back 200 years, if I had the wherewithal to do that and then come back to the present. I'd find out all the straight scoop on what the steel was, who the makers were, stop off in the twentieth century and find out the real tip about the Fillys, ducks, pumas, all of that.

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And here I thought you WERE around 200 yrs ago:)

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Originally Posted by pixelfixed

And here I thought you WERE around 200 yrs ago:)

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Here is a "selfie" of me .......... :)

Attachment 188638

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Originally Posted by Geezer

You taste will develop over time and finances. Whatever you choose, have it professionally honed.
The journey is in the learning.
~Richard

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And this place has made the journey more easily undertaken. :)

Thanks Richard!