Thread: Razor sorting criteria ?

Hey guys,

I finally have all my razors in one place and I will be oiling them with Rig Gun Grease and mineral oil and then sorting them into different categories but I would appreciate your help in deciding what categories to use.
Please note that I have a ton of razors, about 1,000 of them.

Here is my first draft of the different categories ......

1.German
a. NOS
b. Excellent, appears to be as good as NOS
c. Very good, no blemishes to minor blemishes
d. Small 3/8-9/16
e. Medium 5/8-6/8
f. Large 7/8+

2. Restorables
A. Small 3/8-9/16
B. Medium 5/8-6/8
C. Large 7/8+

Sheffield
same as German

Don't forget the wind chime category!

Originally Posted by randydance062449

Hey guys,

I finally have all my razors in one place and I will be oiling them with Rig Gun Grease and mineral oil and then sorting them into different categories but I would appreciate your help in deciding what categories to use.
Please note that I have a ton of razors, about 1,000 of them.

This sounds like the perfect job for an RDBMS (Relational Database Management System). Although it might sound complicated, the setup is straightforward, and you've already defined the elements: national origin, manufacturer, blade size, grind, tip, scale material, condition, item number, etc. The difficult (read: time-consuming) part is entering the information which, thankfully, does not need to be done all at once.

The beauty of an RDBMS is that, once the information has been entered, you could access data for an individual razor, or extract data for a group of razors, based on one-or-more of their elements — sorting keys — i.e., German razors with half-full grind, French tip, and ivory scales (if such exist in the database).

I assume you're running a version of Microsoft Windows. There are any number of RDBMSes available to you; a well-known and proven one is MySQL, which is free and available for Microsoft Windows.

I am not (nor have I ever been) a database administrator, but I did set-up one or two in another life. It's not that difficult, and is certainly worth considering — especially with the number of razors you've got. There are also "how-to" books about it.

An RDBMS beats the heck out of several shoebox-fulls of 3x5 cards.

FWIW...

If it were me I would list them by makers.

When you get multiple razors by one maker then break them down further.
Say you have 25 Wade Butchers, then break them down by size, point shape etc.

A general category, like restorables would be handy too.

This is probably more work, but I think that in the long run it would make it easier to pinpoint exactly what you have.

Just my 2¢

Pete <:-}

After reading J.B. 's post, it looks to me that a good spreadsheet is in order.
I have never done one so can't be much help with that.

Pete <:-}

Originally Posted by sharptonn

Don't forget the wind chime category!

Got a bunch of those!

When I remove the good scales from my big bag of junkers I will let you know.

Originally Posted by JBHoren

This sounds like the perfect job for an RDBMS (Relational Database Management System). Although it might sound complicated, the setup is straightforward, and you've already defined the elements: national origin, manufacturer, blade size, grind, tip, scale material, condition, item number, etc. The difficult (read: time-consuming) part is entering the information which, thankfully, does not need to be done all at once.

The beauty of an RDBMS is that, once the information has been entered, you could access data for an individual razor, or extract data for a group of razors, based on one-or-more of their elements — sorting keys — i.e., German razors with half-full grind, French tip, and ivory scales (if such exist in the database).

I assume you're running a version of Microsoft Windows. There are any number of RDBMSes available to you; a well-known and proven one is MySQL, which is free and available for Microsoft Windows.

I am not (nor have I ever been) a database administrator, but I did set-up one or two in another life. It's not that difficult, and is certainly worth considering — especially with the number of razors you've got. There are also "how-to" books about it.

An RDBMS beats the heck out of several shoebox-fulls of 3x5 cards.

I understand your comment. Years ago I setup a few RDBMS. I am not sure it would benefit me with my plans for the razors. Frankly, I am not sure 100% of what I want to do with them. A few of the extra NOS razors will be sold , such as the Filarmonica #12 razors. I also have multiple other NOS Razors that I will keep at least one of. My main question, for myself, is what to do with the "Restorable" razors. There are far too many for me to work on, I will probably sell most of those, probably 2-3 at a time. (saves on mailing cost.).

Originally Posted by petercp4e

FWIW...

If it were me I would list them by makers.

When you get multiple razors by one maker then break them down further.
Say you have 25 Wade Butchers, then break them down by size, point shape etc.

A general category, like restorables would be handy too.

This is probably more work, but I think that in the long run it would make it easier to pinpoint exactly what you have.

Just my 2¢

Pete <:-}

I will be separating the Sheffield razors by manufacture, Wade & Butcher, Wostenholm, Tally Ho. After that than by size category.

To give you an idea of what I have to sort here are some of the containers of razors .....

Restorables ....

.
.
Some of the Sheffields ...... each of the red cigar boxes has at least 10 razors.