My new interest in life...straight razor shaving

[mralabraska]

My father passed away last February and I inherited his 1890's roll top desk. Hidden in one of the secret drawers, I found the beautiful straight razor pictured below. It captured my imagination and made me wonder what it would be like to shave with it since I am tired of paying for over priced shaving cartridges with four blades that have never satisfied my desire for a nice shave. According to the SRP data base, it is a razor produced by Carl Friedrich Ern's company but I could not find anything about the connection with Wald-Solingen marked on the other side of the tang.

The Crown Sword inlay is one of ERN's trademarks. Does Wald-Solingen indicate that Wald was a smaller manufacture absorbed by Solingen or ERN? Also, I am curious about the American Indian with headdress engraved on the blade next to SOLINGEN. Anyone know the story behind this?

To make a long story short, I finally found the SRP community and have been reading as much as I can before my first shave...thanks to all for the wonderful articles, resources, and information. I recently found a Simmons Hardware razor in an antique store with a Damascus (engraved) blade made in Germany and a cameo of a general's head (looks Napoleonic) among swirls on one of the yellow celluloid scales. My intentions are to restore this razor (as a novice) and develop honing and stropping as well as shaving skills so as not to use the ERN.

But I am rethinking the plan since I really want to start shaving soon and I do not see any reason why I should not use the ERN for my first shave (as long as I do not drop it!) after having someone with experience do the honing. Are the razor sharpening services through Classic Shaving recommended??

Your feedback is greatly appreciated.
Al