Backstory: I've known of a tiny Henckels 279 4/8 razor at a local shop for about six months. Never picked it up since I tend toward medium sized razors and besides, the scales were humdrum cream-colored nothingness. Today, I figured, why not and bought it for next to nothing. The blade was nearly perfect with no hone marks...looks like the original owner used it until the original edge went out and then tossed it into a drawer.

Bought the razor and was showing to someone in the shop that was interested in it and dropped it on the floor... Luckily there was no damage and the guy was pretty apologetic about the whole scene so I let it go.

Got home and started up with some simichrome. The blade polished up nice, but I was dreading wasting the polish on the gawd aweful cream scales...you guys know the story on those cheapo scales. So I began. Now I LOVE the smell of celluloid and often stop several times through the polish to get my 'fix' by smelling the warmed scales....odd...the scales didn't smell like celluloid. Then I noticed the pattern. This was ivory!!! Polished a bit more and the shine began to take hold...wow! Not only were they ivory, but they are THICK ivory, not that super-slim ivory stuff you normally find. This is every bit as thick as celluloid scales from the same time period. Honing was a cinch since another thing I discovered is that this guy is not only 4/8 but it's also a singing razor...double woot.

The Shave: After going through the hones, pastes, and strop, it was time to shave. These tiny razor are particularly picky about angles. Not only that, but I've become very accustomed to using the lightest of pressure while shaving and letting the blade do the work for me. This guy forced me to backtrack a little and figure out the exact pressure that would have normally have been on a 6/8 or it would skip and bounce all over on each stroke sometimes during a skip, it would try to 'end up' off it's angle into a perpendicular angle....yikes. But I just took my time and it turned out to be a very nice shave.

So the point to the story? Razors are like a box of chocolates, you never know what you get until it's been polished and cleaned. It's the biggest diamonds that take the longest to cut, but the effort is well worth it.

And just to urk you razor-prono-freaks, I'm not posting a pic since the DSLR won't be back in the house for another week