Thread: Help Identifying before I spend money to restore

Hello all, I am new to the site and as my first post I want to see if everyone here is really as helpful as people say all over the internet. I am currently trying to track down some information on a straight razor that I have recently gotten from an antique store. on the blade under some tarnish I see that it is stamped "Barber's Standard" and on the tang I see that it says "Howard's Razor Company Worcester (or worcestor. im not looking at it currently just going off of memory.) It is a nice find in my opinion but I cant decide if I want to do the work on the restore myself or if I want to have it professionally done to make sure that it holds its true beauty and is some what of a conversation starter. Please give me any information you can as I can't find any on "howard's razor company" the only thing i've seen about it is that someone else recently has sold one that was in rough condition for like $22 but I'd like to believe its more valuable than this. I havent taken measurements on the actual razor yet but it feels like a good quality antique razor and has the look too. It has yellowish scales with a wooden spacer in between them towards the bottom and the scales look to be good in condition. Only thing I really see wrong with the razor is some minor rusting at the pivot and a few very small chips at the edge of the blade that can only be seen if using a jewelers loupe. I would be very happy to see some information on these such as what time frame they were in and whether it is worth having done professionally or me just doing a somewhat ok job on it for extra practice of restoring blades myself (i'm extremely new to restoring and have only one that I have done so far.) Thanks in advance. I would post pictures but don't have any on my computer at this time.

We do not discuss value here on SRP. If you are "handy", then attempt to restore it. If not, contact one of the persons in the classified's via pm and discuss having it restored professionally.

Lastly, without pics...we really can't assist you at all.

Originally Posted by shooter74743

We do not discuss value here on SRP. If you are "handy", then attempt to restore it. If not, contact one of the persons in the classified's via pm and discuss having it restored professionally.

Lastly, without pics...we really can't assist you at all.

None of which doesn't mean we're not curious -- it would be great if we could see some pictures, maybe you have a diamond in the rough.

Some pictures would help us help you figure out what to do. The money thing is a taboo subject but talking about the condition of the razor and whether or not it is a good restore candidate is ok. There are also varying level of restore. It can be a thorough cleaning or new scales or a complete refinish of the blade and all new scales, so you need to also try to figure out how far you would like to go.

Originally Posted by shooter74743

We do not discuss value here on SRP. If you are "handy", then attempt to restore it. If not, contact one of the persons in the classified's via pm and discuss having it restored professionally.

Lastly, without pics...we really can't assist you at all.

Wasn't just asking for value. I was asking in relation to it being worth getting professionally done and was also asking for information someone may have on the company that made this razor. I understand that pictures make things easier but from a standpoint of seeing past ones of these if there are several out there that have been sold it should be easy to determine that yes if it's in a certain condition it may be worth professional restoration or no these were a cheap razor when they first started being produced. People like you really make it difficult for people to find joy in a forum site and put a bad face to them. If you have information on the company feel free to leave it here if not and you were just going to down the post you probably should have just pass by it rather than posting.

Originally Posted by RezDog

Some pictures would help us help you figure out what to do. The money thing is a taboo subject but talking about the condition of the razor and whether or not it is a good restore candidate is ok. There are also varying level of restore. It can be a thorough cleaning or new scales or a complete refinish of the blade and all new scales, so you need to also try to figure out how far you would like to go.

I will try to post some pictures when I get back to the house. I have only seen one other Howard razor and it was in bad Condition and didn't have the same scales that mine does so I'm just curious if it would be worth restoring or not.

I cant tell you about the maker, but I'd say go for it, try restoring it yourself. Hard to tell without pictures.. I normally try not to go lower than 800 grit paper and work up to 3K from there (so 800, 1K, 2K, 3K). If you have access to some CrOx, or red jewelers rouge, even better, give it some polishing after the sandpaper. Dremel would be ideal for the paste, but hand polishing will work too, just slower.

The people you just said "people like you" to are some of the nicest, politest people around anywhere. They're trying to help you, and they are knowledgeable but a) obviously don't recognize the maker of your razor, nor b) know your experience or skill level restoring razors. They were stating forum rules about valuation. If you post decent pictures, people will give you opinions.

Not sure from your description but seems like I have seen mainly some Japanese razors with a designation of Barbers Razor or Standard and were used by barbers in business as a meat and potato razor or what I mean by that as a daily user for customers. Hence the name designation. Now this is only an assumption on my part from peruzzing the I-net!

Originally Posted by Haroldg48

The people you just said "people like you" to are some of the nicest, politest people around anywhere. They're trying to help you, and they are knowledgeable but a) obviously don't recognize the maker of your razor, nor b) know our experience or skill level restoring razors. They were stating forum rules about valuation. If you post decent pictures, people will give you opinions.

I'm sorry if I took that the wrong way then. I just know that most of the time on other forums that you generally see people posting so bluntly about things like that without reading what I was actually asking and usually on other forums the guys that do that are the ones to be rude. I can understand his statement if I was asking directly for what its worth to be sold as but my main question was in relation to would it be worth having sent off to be professionally restored or is it just another generic blade that I'd be wasting my time and money to get redone and in turn if I want it restored I should just restore it myself. I was also wanting to know more about the company that made the blade if anyone had knowledge of them because I had never heard of Howards razor company. Thank you for clarifying in his defense so that I better understood why he was mentioning this rather than just trying to give a new person to the forum a hard time. It just seem like that is the norm anymore on internet forums. Glad we could clear this up.