Thread: Not the prettiest of my W&Bs

But she still shaves nice.

I love the matching old scales too. They are often fixed up or replaced, but I really enjoy the silver streaks and raised grain with an old blade.

I think she looks perfect.

SHe embraces her age and is not embarrassed by a few lines. Nice.

Bit of a flaw in the blade with the stabilized rust, but it is a purely cosmetic thing. As to the scales, I left it because I had just gone through the resurrection of my stubby W&B, and wanted to keep the next one as "original" as possible. This one was advertised as shave ready, and lived up to the billing, so I have not touched but to strop and shave. Well, that has not happened for a while, as I have been using mostly DEs lately, but still . . .

Looks purty to me!

I began to like patina a long while back,
I prefer this FBU wedge one to a restored one I have.
I cannot say why. They both shave excellent.
Something about the history, I suppose....

It takes many many years of love to make a nice deep grey on the blade, which really is patina. I have a couple that I kept that way.

My opinion is that conservation is preferable to restoration for antique blades. By "antique" I mean roughly pre WW1 - this lines up with the antique dealers definition of more than 100 years old