Where do you see the straight razor trend in........?

Many have been shaving with and collecting straight razors much longer than I have. I have enough time and experience to know what I like in razors when I see them and to appreciate well made razors both in their shaving ability, aesthetics and craftsmanship.

I've also been in this even if for a relatively short time to see prices of both vintage and production razors rise (no surprise).

I'd love to hear predictions, prognostications, etc from others as to where you believe the popularity, value/cost of straight razors will go in the future years, decades or beyond and why. Here's your chance to lay down a prediction for posterity and if correct, be able to say "I told y'all so!":)

I recall Thebigspender mentioning that he'd eventually been priced out of at least one hobby previously. I found that interesting.

I'm not good with predictions myself. I'm glad I "got in" when I did and only have a modest collection of approx 100 razors at this point with virutually all of them purchased for what I consider to be good to great deals.

My intent with this post is not to hasten the course of any potential trend, but rather, talk about what is undoubtedly an evolution (or is it a spike/bubble, etc?) in the interest we share here.



Chris L

I can only hope that there will be other new production (quality) razors in the near future, and that competition will drive prices down. I'd love to see a return of the time where there were so many makers you didn't know who made what but you knew anything stamped Solingen or Sheffield was quality, but I fear that will only happen in my dreams...

Well, much will depend on whether enough restorers emerge while beginners dry up the market for restored vintage razors. I trust only a few restorers, and one of my favourite ones is already backlogged for three months.

The other thing is beginners getting RAD and getting into honing. Many are lead to believe that only a limited number of brands is worth buying (thus driving up prices for these brands), and are bound to ruin those blades in their first attempts at honing.

A combination of both would indeed ruin this hobby for someone like me (I hate custom scales, with only a few exceptions, for my personal razors) in a few years, if the current trend stays the way it is, or even increases the number of straight razor users.

Incidentally, the above was a major contributing factor for me to put work into the Wiki. We now offer beginners quite a good source of information in an easy-to-digest format to help them prevent making the most stupid mistakes :)

Regards,
Robin

I see the influx of huge amounts of more sub-par Chinese and now even Pakistani razors as the vintage razor market shrinks...
These razors that only 2 short years ago were not even considered to be shave worthy are now becoming the cheap entry level razor...
No one would consider them 2-3 years ago when DD Satinedges and Special No1's could be had in good shape for $25
American steel went for less, now with prices on vintage going through the roof, I think we will see more and more of this...

On a positive note we are seeing some high quality companies coming back into the market too...

I agree with Robin on the effect of restoration...
The Workshop is a very busy forum now, and growing more and more, again from the shrinking Vintage razor market... Many razors that would have been passed over before are now being re-worked and brought back to life...
New techniques are being developed and used every day by the fine restorers on this forum.. Ideas are tried and proved to work or left by the wayside ...
The average Vintage razor used to be polished by hand or perhaps a Dremel and put back in rotation, now the average, requires hours of serious work with much more aggressive methods to bring back to shaving today...

Honing also has evolved in a very short time, what used to be considered a fine shaving edge, today is considered the bare minimum of a shave ready edge...

Amazing changes ...

Perhaps it will be like the classic car market in the UK, where a few years ago fairly nondescript vehicles suddenly began to change hands for outrageous sums. Some were bought as 'investments', some as toys. They were often purchased by people with no mechanical aptitude or even the skill to drive them properly. Eventually the bottom dropped out of the market, with only true rare classics being worth money.
I think that perhaps the razor market is a kind of microcosm of classic cars and m/cycles.
There is an element of greed. With one hundred razors being described by some as a modest collection. How many razors do you really need? Why should you be able to buy them cheaply if the demand is high?
I have ten razors all of which please me, not one is rare or sought after. To me, I probably have eight too many.
Unlike cars, which take up space, I suppose many razors bought in a fit of enthusiasm by a new generation of users may end up tossed in the back of a drawer and forgotten.

I recall being surprised at the amount of straight razors available for sale on websites worldwide. Referring to new razors. Since men will always have to shave, assuming the islamists don't succeed in world domination, I think that the future of straight razor shaving is secure.

As for the vintage market, ebay shows a seemingly never ending supply of vintage razors day after day, week after week and year after year. People move on to other interests or they die and collections become available. There will always be a supply and a demand IMO.

As for prices, ir a fellow is after the latest hot item he has to be willing to pay a premium. To some this is worth the price of admission while to others it is not. Thankfully there are plenty of quality shavers out there at reasonable prices and I suspect there always will be. So I see the market and future of straight razor shaving being ongoing for a minority of discriminating folks. :beer1:

Straight shaving seems to become sort of a trend now. A trend that will go on and grow for a while, but i believe i wont last forever. Majority of people are not willing to put their time and efforts into shaving and restoring razors. They still want to do their shaving quick and effectively with Mach3's and such. I believe we will see the day when prices start coming down again.
As usual, i might as well be all wrong with my guess.

What is positive in this trend that more and more vintage old razors get restored and back to life.

As said for so many times before, some brands have become some kinds of holy grails of razors. Some kind of status symbols. That makes other people want those same brands as well and soon the prices have gone into heaven.
I can say from only past 4 or 5 years but the eBay prices have been rising into stupido levels. Luckily i live in a part of the world where straight shaving is still no trend so it is easy to pick up from a flea market our web auctions razors with reasonable prices. I could easily imagine paying muchos euros for a knife or razor that is somehow unique or handmade, but never for something that was meant to be the cheap everyday tool of a mass production.

Luckily i do not have serious RAD, i rather pick up a razor (or knife or some other vintage tool) whenever i see some nice piece for reasonable price.

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Originally Posted by welshwizard

Perhaps it will be like the classic car market in the UK, where a few years ago fairly nondescript vehicles suddenly began to change hands for outrageous sums. Some were bought as 'investments', some as toys. They were often purchased by people with no mechanical aptitude or even the skill to drive them properly. Eventually the bottom dropped out of the market, with only true rare classics being worth money.
I think that perhaps the razor market is a kind of microcosm of classic cars and m/cycles.
There is an element of greed. With one hundred razors being described by some as a modest collection. How many razors do you really need? Why should you be able to buy them cheaply if the demand is high?
I have ten razors all of which please me, not one is rare or sought after. To me, I probably have eight too many.
Unlike cars, which take up space, I suppose many razors bought in a fit of enthusiasm by a new generation of users may end up tossed in the back of a drawer and forgotten.

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It may be a vice I'm guilty of in regard to collecting straight razors. What would you call those that have hundreds or even thousands of razors in their collection?

Chris L

I think this trend has really taken off because of the exorbitant cost of M3/ Quattro blades. £4 per blade...? :dropjaw:

I got my brother a DE for his birthday last year, mainly because he'd been saying how fed up he was paying through the nose for cartridge blades. So he'd use one for six months, well beyond its useful life, just because of the cost. We can get a pack of 10 DE blades over here for £3, so it was a no brainer really..! :)

I reckon the well known makes (W&B, DD, Filarmonica etc...) will continue to go for top dollar, just because they are well known. And as the supply runs out other makes will become expensive.

Whether this increase in straight razor users continues depends on how much time people are prepared to put into their shaving. Not everyone wants a £200 razor, honed up to 30k or finished on a £700 Asagi stone, nor do they want to spend the time on shaving each day. Its a time/money saved trade off really.

More people are getting into the hobby side as a result of films like Sweeney Todd (thanks Mr. Burton, I'll be asking you for a subsidy on my next eBay purchase! :D) and a growing interest in the past.

As much as companies like to give us the next cutting edge (literally in this case!) technology, I think more people are hankering for the past and the less frantic pace of life. Hence people wanting straight razors, starting to write letters rather than send emails, brewing their own beer, making their own furniture.

Theres also a satisfaction to be had from doing these things yourself, from making your kids beds and wardrobes to restoring and using a straight razor. The recession has prompted people to save money, as well as stopping them from going out. So people are buying a beat up razor for £10 on eBay and then taking several evenings to restore it. Thats good bang for your buck in entertainment terms, and you have a shiny razor to use at the end of it..! :)

Like a lot of these things though, there will be the initial influx of mad keen new people, but some will drop out, or switch back to the more convenient DE/electric/cartridge method. Its rather like going to the gym on January 2nd; Its rammed then, but you know it'll be half empty by mid March!

Great post!

I think it's unfortunate for us that we took up straight shaving at this time. Straight use is really different than other collectibles because with most things you just stare at them. Of course many purely straight collectors do the same however the new interest by users is a phenomenon which I do not think will grow to any huge degree simply because this takes work and dedication. I know our membership is growing which would tend to say hey interest in straights is huge however what we don't know is what percentage take it up and leave it by the wayside pretty soon. I think that percentage is larger than we think. It will always be a niche thing.

Reminds me of pocketwatches. Even though they made them by the 10s of millions or more the supply is limited and becomes further limited year by year. They were common items and treated as such in past years by most people so the good ones dwindle. The same with razors. Over time more and more simply dissappear and the best are in collections which are recycled when someone dies just like pocketwatches.

The country or world as a whole is in a collection frenzy and has been for several years now. Will it continue? Who knows but as far as razors go involving users, short term, prices will rise but long term I don't think so.

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Originally Posted by ChrisL

It may be a vice I'm guilty of in regard to collecting straight razors. What would you call those that have hundreds or even thousands of razors in their collection?

Chris L

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Very fortunate. :)

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Originally Posted by ChrisL

What would you call those that have hundreds or even thousands of razors in their collection?

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Very enthusiastic razor collectors.

I wasn't having a dig. It was just that someone had expressed the feeling that he was being priced out of his hobby by the rising cost of purchasing nice razors.
Obviously price is driven by demand. If more people want them,or individuals want more of them, then prices will rise.
I would say that those with a huge appetite for collecting prized razors could well be driving up demand and with it, prices.
Which is fair enough.

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Originally Posted by welshwizard

There is an element of greed. With one hundred razors being described by some as a modest collection. How many razors do you really need? Why should you be able to buy them cheaply if the demand is high?
I have ten razors all of which please me, not one is rare or sought after. To me, I probably have eight too many.

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Sounds like Capitalism, of which I'm a big fan. I've been hit by a recent bout of RAD and put in bids of a few Ebay specials lately. On one of them I got into a bidding war and won, but still got a good price as far as I'm concerned. The others have been restoration projects needing serious attention, but costing me no more than $20 apiece. I plan on cleaning them up and parting with some of the more nondescript ones for people who are just getting started.

Goog

I have always been a collector of 'stuff'. As a kid it was comic books and in my adult life it has been briar tobacco pipes, pocket knives, razors, bicycles and handguns. Interest comes and goes in these things. Some stay and others get sold. I have had more than a dozen bicycles come and go in the last ten years. I am down to a manageable 5 right now. With the razors I was like a basking shark inhaling every thing that was in my path for a time. Now I am far more discriminating than a year or two ago.

In the past I might have bought some fairly grungy razors with hone wear and what have you. Nowadays, since I don't restore razors I only go for items that I'm attracted to and that are in really nice condition. Naturally it costs more but I buy far less and I'm usually happy with what I end up with when I stick to that buying philosophy.

I was up to a few hundred tobacco pipes, like any normal person, a few years ago. I was talking with a friend who has 600 give or take a few. He is a lawyer and a very intelligent man in his 60s. I said that I thought it was a sickness and he said, "Oh yeah, it is a disease." I was surprised that he was so casual in recognizing that. It was as if he knew it and was okay with it. Then again, I guess I am too.

I have noticed this too and I'm saddened buy it. Originally I would buy stuff on ebay, resto it and hone it, then sell it again on ebay, but that only happened like three times, now I'm just gonna hang on to them cus my collection isn't that big and I fear if I sell a bunch I may not be able to afford getting more.

Possibly the trend will mimic the knife industry. There were two trends in the sport knife industry over the last several years. First, a push for exotic steel. Many knives are advertised based on the steel, and some even have the steel type stamped on the blade.

A second trend has been a gradual shift of manufacturing to Taiwan and China. I don't mean junk knives. I mean Buck, Spyderco, etc. They can carefully cultivate a Chinese partner and by controlling tooling, materials, and QC they can eventually get a first class product. A top quality USA or Japan made Spyderco might retail for two or three times an equivalent Chinese made version.

So maybe someday there will be a Chinese made Dovo or a new razor made with some trendy steel.

I wonder if blade width will be like surf boards and skirt lengths. Ten years from now we will look back at the popularity of 7/8 and 8/8 blades and say "what were we thinking." :shrug:

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Originally Posted by matt321

I wonder if blade width will be like surf boards and skirt lengths. Ten years from now we will look back at the popularity of 7/8 and 8/8 blades and say "what were we thinking." :shrug:

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I sure hope so

One of the most interesting aspects of straight razor shaving is how many choices there really are. I have and still use, on occasion, a DE for 2 years. I have tried at least 20 different brands of blades and about 40 different razors. To be honest, the difference between different makes, honing, steels, grinds, and styles of a straight is much greater than a DE or cartridge.

I think this will be key moving forward. While this will be niche market, most people will have a number of razors as they experiment. They will resell some and keep others while they acquire new ones to try. This will keep the market full of good quality razors. Prices will then be driven more by the cost of skilled labor than by anything else.

I guess there are 2 basic markets - collector/investors and users.

Collectors
The interest in buying and selling razors as collectibles may well depend on the growth of prices - are they worthwhile investments?

Actual users - this will probably remain a pretty small number. Most people would be happy with getting in and out of the bathroom quickly with an adequate shave. Most people wouldn't invest the time and effort to get a decent straight razor shave.

However - I wouldn't be surprised if the DE users increased in number. This isn't such a step away from the disposables.

Also interesting is the number of people who appear to be interested in DIY razors. Again a limited number, but certainly another interesting development.

Funny how being in a community where you share a similar interest can give you the impression that there are many more of us out there.

All the best,
Michael.

What I think is going to happen is we will see less and less quality "good finds" in the local antique shops and more and more ebay sketchy deals.

Sadly, what sucks is that a lot of good razor or potentially great restores are ending up in the hands of those just starting out.

This problem is what has happened in my other hobby reefkeeping, basically what happened early on was newbie's grabbing very difficult specimens or mixing the wrong fish together practicing bad husbandry because they saw the movie Nemo. Eventually these fish would die in their care from lack of experience or knowledge and vendors trying to make a buck sell without morals.

Not all vendors are this bad some actually want to see proper husbandry occur. This can be kind of what maybe be happening here, lots of good razors going too quickly to those not invested in this hobby.

The only thing that saved reefkeeping was coral propagation(farming) maybe there will be something to keep the prices affordable in this hobby too.

David

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Originally Posted by matt321

I wonder if blade width will be like surf boards and skirt lengths. Ten years from now we will look back at the popularity of 7/8 and 8/8 blades and say "what were we thinking." :shrug:

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Oh I do so hope that your right! 4/8, 9/16 & 5/8 dominate my collection!:)

The popularity of this hobby is much greater than it was a number of years ago. Originally it was much more difficult to get started shaving with a Str8 razor so that kept the numbers low. A lot of people quit because of the difficulty to hone a razor. That is now all changed with the advent of the various razor forums and honing services provided by skilled people. We have made using a str8 much easier to learn. That will power a continuing interest with much less falloff of members.

One of the other major reasons for a continuation of this trend is the low cost of entry. Collecting automobiles or shotguns is much more expensive that Str8 razors. This is an inexpensive hobby to indulge in.

I also expect that there will be more manufacturers popping up offering better steels and processes. The modern steels are a definite selling point, just look at the knife market, and new processes like water jets, hydraulic presses, kilns, and liquid nitrogen present the promise of a better product.The market size has now expanded to the point where a profit can be made and the distribution channels are forming very nicely, worldwide!

What is lacking is a national public presence of any manufacturer. If a person wants to start using a str8 they have no idea where to start.
That will take some time to develop.

Vintage razors in good shape will always be in demand because there are more selling points, i.e. variety of blade shapes & sizes, age ( 100 years old!), scale material, patina, a lower entry price. and the possibility of getting it restored/customized.

We are in for a long & interesting future,