Thread: Why are Damascus steel razors so expensive?

Originally Posted by red96ta

Filis are expensive not because they contain some magical quality, it's just because people will pay that much for them. Supply and demand.

Think of those Filis as a collector coin. A 1909s VDB penny is only worth a penny but folks pay thousands to attain one...why? Because 1)they want them and 2) there's only a limited supply.

They have attained the same mystique as the dubl duck Wonderedge, Lifetime (Reaper) and Goldedge. Like the fore mentioned ducks they are real good shavers 99 times out of 100 but bring far more as a collectible then they are worth simply as a shaver.

0n the damascus, I have a few and paid the freight. They are beautiful razors and great shavers. No better or worse than a high carbon necessarily but really cool to have if that is your thing.

I am always incredulous that the steel can be folded hundreds or even thousands of times as I frequently read. I would have thought that it would be ruined in the process ?

Originally Posted by Philadelph

That's actually a very poor, misinformed answer and I hope no member's take it as fact.

The truth is, as others have explained, that a LOT more goes into making the STEEL in itself than using a non-patterned steel. I have personally MADE damascus from scratch, and after allllll the hours, sweat, mistakes, and effort that went in it didn't even look that good. Once you have stood in front of the forge with the billet red-hot and then hammered and twisted the steel time after time (I'm leaving out a lot of steps here) you will TRULY understand why damascus is expensive. After I made those 2 billets (taught by someone who makes it regularly) I decided that I'd never want to make my own again rather than paying someone else to make it for me. It's really an intensive process that is sadly dismissed too often by those who have no idea.

On the contrary, sir. Yours is a common economic misconception. All that you say is well and good, but misses the fundamental microeconomic point. The effort that the maker puts into the product - the labor, the skill, the quality of the materials - none of this directly determines its value in the marketplace. Only the customer can do that. If the seller can convince a potential customer to accept his own valuation of the razor's worth, then so much the better for him. Possibly the potential customer will base his valuation on other aspects entirely, such as the fact that it was made in a particular country (USA! USA! USA!), and assign an extra value that the seller does not consider (or the reverse, which was a point of contention about the Hart razor). But possibly the potential customer will value such things differently than the seller does, in which case the seller must adjust his own valuation to match. Possibly uncomfortably lower, possibly gloriously higher. But there is nonetheless only a very imperfect match between the labor, skill, and material that goes into a product, and the value attached to that product. We see this all the time with guys griping about the cost of razors on ebay, or the cost of gillette razors, or the cost of Penhaligons shaving soap. While this may be an uncomfortable thing for a proud craftsman to think about, it is nonetheless a fact. It is possible that the two cannot agree on a common valuation, and the craftsman gets to admire his work sitting on his mantlepiece, and comfort himself that it is at least being appreciated properly by someone who truly understands it. But that doesn't pay the bills, nor does it mean that his valuation is the "correct" one, merely that he values his pride more than paying the bills.

To the extent that the damascus makers have succeeded in convincing their customers to value the labor and skill involved, they can charge a premium for their razors that is not justified by the actual shaving qualities. But there are other reasons to value damascus highly (aesthetics), as well as reasons to devalue it (layer transitions at the edge, higher maintenance to preserve those aesthetics, etc) which have nothing to do with skill or labor, and I would guess that few of the people on this forum who have ponied up for a damascus razor have the sort of appreciation for what goes into making it that you do, which makes yours an inadequate description for what establishes the value of damascus razors.

Originally Posted by red96ta

Filis are expensive not because they contain some magical quality, it's just because people will pay that much for them. Supply and demand.

Yep. The value of a Fili has very little to do with the cost to produce them, nor does the value of a dubl duck, nor the value of a Hart, or TI, or Dovo, or Livi. They are worth what they are, because people for a variety of reasons are willing to pay it. Rarity, coolness, investment potential, SRAD, whatever. But very little of it has anything to do with whatever went into the manufacture of those razors.

Originally Posted by JimmyHAD

I am always incredulous that the steel can be folded hundreds or even thousands of times as I frequently read. I would have thought that it would be ruined in the process ?

It isn't. It's folded only a relatively few times The number of layers doubles with each folding. Start with two layers forged together, then folding will produce 4, 8, 16, 32, 64, 128, 256, 512, 1024, 2048, 4096 etc layers in succession. You can get to some spectacular numbers in a hurry, even more if you start with 3 or more layers.

Originally Posted by mparker762

On the contrary, sir. Yours is a common economic misconception. All that you say is well and good, but misses the fundamental microeconomic point. The effort that the maker puts into the product - the labor, the skill, the quality of the materials - none of this directly determines its value in the marketplace...

But there is nonetheless only a very imperfect match between the labor, skill, and material that goes into a product, and the value attached to that product...

While this may be an uncomfortable thing for a proud craftsman to think about, it is nonetheless a fact. It is possible that the two cannot agree on a common valuation, and the craftsman gets to admire his work sitting on his mantlepiece, and comfort himself that it is at least being appreciated properly by someone who truly understands it. But that doesn't pay the bills, nor does it mean that his valuation is the "correct" one, merely that he values his pride more than paying the bills.

You obviously have your opinion and I have mine, but it IS a fact that the intensive labor that goes into making damascus also creates the cost. I understand that a buyer determines cost, but that is not THE reason damascus razors are expensive. In the custom knife world, whether the value is justified or not (which still lies in the mind of the buyer) cost DOES move in accordance with labor although there is no set scale as to what prices should be. You can argue all day that the buyer determines the cost but the labor issue is still there. If damascus didn't sell for high prices, it wouldn't be made. The labor wouldn't equal the return. We could argue the semantics of 'economics' or 'value' all day and still go in circles.

Originally Posted by Philadelph

If damascus didn't sell for high prices, it wouldn't be made. The labor wouldn't equal the return.

Or somebody would figure out a more cost-effective way to make it, or it would be valued the same way art is valued, purely on its aesthetic qualities with no real consideration for the labor involved; I suspect that it is already valued as art btw, and the reason labor is such an imperfect proxy for value is because labor is really a rough proxy for the artistic quality of the resulting steel, and because we have such a poor knowledge of the labor that goes into a razor - Zowada doesn't put the workbill next to the price tag on his razors on the Classic Shaving website; we're left to infer the labor and material inputs from the asking price, which is the complete reverse of your argument. What we do have pretty good knowledge about is the aesthetics of the razor - Classic Shaving may skip the workbills but they make sure to put up nice large photos of the razors, which implies that Classic believes that purchasing decisions are being made based on artistic considerations, *not* labor calculations, not even approximately based on labor calculations, though it is possible that Classic Shaving is wrong about this, and they could charge more for the razors if their customers really knew what it took to make that $2100 Zowada damascus razor versus that $700 TI damascus razor.

Edit: split into two sentences.

Originally Posted by mparker762

Zowada doesn't put the workbill next to the price tag on his razors on the Classic Shaving website; we're left to infer the labor and material inputs from the asking price, which is the complete reverse of your argument. What we do have pretty good knowledge about is the aesthetics of the razor - Classic Shaving may skip the workbills but they make sure to put up nice large photos of the razors, which implies that Classic believes that purchasing decisions are being made based on artistic considerations, *not* labor calculations, not even approximately based on labor calculations, though it is possible that Classic Shaving is wrong about this, and they could charge more for the razors if their customers really knew what it took to make that $2100 Zowada damascus razor versus that $700 TI damascus razor.

I'm almost positive that Classic Shaving doesn't set the prices for Zowada razors... Tim Zowada does. That's because he knows what went into them AS WELL AS what he can get out. Also, the price difference between a Zowada custom and a TI damascus is like comparing an original Van Gogh to a Thomas Kinkade lithograph... it has a LOT to do with the labor involved. I'm not saying that labor is the only determining factor or that art, aesthetics, and consumer demand play no part, but saying "because people are willing to pay a lot of money for them" as a be-all end-all answer is pretty ignorant. I didn't set out to give a breakdown as to the merits and drawbacks of damascus- that can't be argued to an end either.

Originally Posted by Philadelph

I'm almost positive that Classic Shaving doesn't set the prices for Zowada razors... Tim Zowada does. That's because he knows what went into them AS WELL AS what he can get out. Also, the price difference between a Zowada custom and a TI damascus is like comparing an original Van Gogh to a Thomas Kinkade lithograph... it has a LOT to do with the labor involved. I'm not saying that labor is the only determining factor or that art, aesthetics, and consumer demand play no part, but saying "because people are willing to pay a lot of money for them" as a be-all end-all answer is pretty ignorant. I didn't set out to give a breakdown as to the merits and drawbacks of damascus- that can't be argued to an end either.

What you've been describing is essentially COGS - Cost Of Goods Sold, basically "what does it take for me to make this". Because the manufacturers *do* know the labor and other expenses involved, they can make an accurate estimation of COGS, but COGS is by no means the same as value or else there would never be sales and outlet malls; when COGS < value, then the manufacturer gets to buy his kids braces and retire at a decent age, when COGS > value then he either improves his efficiency, lowers his standard of living, or solves the whole problem by outsourcing it to somebody in China.

There's also the problem of imperfect knowledge. I don't know if the labor differential between the TI and Zowada determines the price differential, because I don't know how much labor went into either of these razors. It's possible that the TI razor was hand forged from tiny ball bearings using a blowtorch and a tack hammer by the most skilled torch-and-tack-hammer craftsman in France (or China given today's manufacturing realities). Maybe Tim will chime in and fill us in on the details of what it took to make one specific razor example. But until we get such information from Zowada and TI we can't be using labor as a basis for our valuation; because we don't know what labor is involved in either razor, this is insufficient to explain the selling price (because both the TI and Zowada razors *are* selling after all). It's not even that we think we know how much labor is involved but may be wrong; we really have no idea at all!

"Because people are willing to pay a lot of money for them" may not be the answer you want to hear. But it is nonetheless the truth. You can put all the blood, sweat, and tears in to a razor that you want, and put a $30,000 price tag on it for your efforts, but until somebody ponies up the $30,000 for it then it isn't actually a $30,000 razor in any meaningful sense ($30,000 picked because there's a razor out there on the intertubes with that price tag on it, it's never sold in the three years or so that I've been aware of its existence).

I don't know all of the reasons why these razors sell for so much, which is why I hedged in my response. "because people are willing to pay a lot of money for them" is not a be-all-end-all answer, it is a carefully conservative answer, that implies that there may be a variety of answers that will vary from purchaser to purchaser, at least that was my intent. You have your preferred explanation for why people are willing to pay a lot of money for them. I disagree with your explanation, but neither your preferred explanation nor my preferred explanation invalidates my initial statement. You may not think "because people are willing to pay a lot of money for them" was a particularly useful answer, but it nonetheless has the advantages of being both correct and complete.

thanks everyone for their input. I was thinking of getting the TI damascus.

Not sure yet.

There are cheap Damascus looking blades, but they are fake. The pattern that is seen is etched onto the surface of the blade and will wear away in time.

The purpose of folding metal is to help impart carbon into the metal. Carbon will migrate from coal or charcoal into the metal. But also the simple act of folding it will make it stronger. Even a forge weld isn't a perfect joining of metal. A hammer that has been forge welded after many years of hard use will start to come apart at the welds. It is this flaw that makes a Damascus blade more durable then a standard blade. Take for example a 1 inch thick strip of wood and another piece of wood the same dimensions, but made up of several strips of wood rather then just one. The piece composed of many pieced will be able to bend farther then the other piece of wood before breaking or taking a permanent bend. That is what makes a folded blade more durable then other blades and why the Japanese still use Damascus techniques to make their blades.

Originally Posted by LeeringCorpse

The purpose of folding metal is to help impart carbon into the metal. Carbon will migrate from coal or charcoal into the metal. But also the simple act of folding it will make it stronger. Even a forge weld isn't a perfect joining of metal. A hammer that has been forge welded after many years of hard use will start to come apart at the welds. It is this flaw that makes a Damascus blade more durable then a standard blade. Take for example a 1 inch thick strip of wood and another piece of wood the same dimensions, but made up of several strips of wood rather then just one. The piece composed of many pieced will be able to bend farther then the other piece of wood before breaking or taking a permanent bend. That is what makes a folded blade more durable then other blades and why the Japanese still use Damascus techniques to make their blades.

So then, the damascus have better edge retention? Does this make them harder to hone?