Thread: old cheap razor question

I noticed that prices of razors are all over the place. I certainly know that a 9$ new razor from ebay is a cheap razor and most likely not worth the paper its wrapped in for shipping. Now my question....are there old "cheap razors" Are all older razors say pre 1950 worth spending the money to get them honed? The reason i ask is say i see one in an antique store that looks nice and feels good in mt hand. Would it be worth spending 10 or 15$ on the razor. Id hate to get it home, sent it off to get honed, and fine out its not worth someones effort to get it shave ready.

Is the brand here? Good Straight Razor Brands - Straight Razor Place Wiki

I would suggest that you get your first razor in the classified as you may miss something that makes the blade not so good. Also it would arrive in shave ready condition.

I dont have one in particular I was talking about. Just in general. Ive already got a few razors I use. I was more or less talking about if I just ran across one.

FWIW --

If you want a "first razor" to shave with, I'd suggest the general advice here:

Buy a "known-good", "shave-read" razor before you hit the antique shops.

From what I read here, and my limited experience, most of the old razors were made of good steel. They were luxury items, finely-crafted, and often well-treated by their owners.

My first razor was an antique-shop razor, a Wade and Butcher, for which I overpaid. But it sharpened up nicely and shaves well. I learned a lot about rust, and how it works through steel, and honing, from sharpening that razor.

I started going around to antique shops with a 10x loupe, to check edges for little nicks and rust spots, on any razors I see. Once in a while, I find something nice, buy it, and sharpen it.

Here's my pricing logic (and it's still developing):

I can buy a "known-good", well-honed vintage razor from the SRP Classifieds for around $50, or from Whipped Dog Straight Razor Sales for $33. It may not be beautiful, but it'll shave well.

An antique-shop razor, unless it's really special, won't be worth more than those. And I have to sharpen it myself. So it's worth less than $33. [I haven't found any "really special" razors yet.]

Old razors can have "hidden flaws". My most-recent purchase had a warped blade -- I discovered that during sharpening. The possibility of such a flaw keeps my "offer price" low.

People call the inexpensive antique-shop blades "project razors". If you do damage while sharpening, it's no big deal -- not a lot of time or money invested. And you might end up (as I have) with perfectly decent shavers.

My best purchase was a Boker spike-point, half-hollow razor. "Oh, that's the broken one -- $7". Even after buying a set of new plastic scales, I did OK.

Note that I'm treating this as a hobby, not as a way to chop hair off my face. They're two very different things.

I guess my advice is:

. . . Go slowly, and don't pay too much.

Sorry for rambling --

Charles

Unless you really know what your looking at its probably best not to buy more expensive razors from Antique stores, but if you find one with no chips, cracks, horribly uneven honewear or major rust for a pretty cheap price you might have something worth taking home.
Its better than grabbing a cheap ebay special, at least you can give it a close look.

Originally Posted by baldy

Unless you really know what your looking at its probably best not to buy more expensive razors from Antique stores,

I wouldnt pay for than 10 or 15$ for a razor without coming here first. I dont know enough about them.

I typically agree with baldy on this issue. The first few thing I would recommend doing is reading the wiki and reading which are the good brands. Then I typically go looking on the bay a lot of other internet shops for those brands that the wiki says is good. What I am looking for is idiots that have a great product in their hands and have no idea what they got and what a fair price for the product is. I will generally get the product for pennys on the dollar compared to what its fair market value is then turn around and sell it for its fair market value. Since the wiki has told me what the good ones are and the classifieds have told me what a fair price for it is I can then go look for those idiots. I have nothing against the classifieds here and I shop for myself there ocasionally the troubble is that forum members know what a good razor is and charge a fair price for it and they are hardly idiots and its the idiots that I am looking for.

Can you get us a decent pic of the blade.

Originally Posted by nun2sharp

Can you get us a decent pic of the blade.

me? I dont have one im looking at. I was just talking in general.

If I were to say one thing to try to answer your question, I'd say that IMHO some of the less popular american blades can be great bang for buck deals. We don't discuss prices etc, but you'll see fierce competition for your more popular brands than you will for some of the respected but less widely known makers.

*(to find out what these are though, you'll really have to take some time and watch the trends, read a bunch of posts, and shop the classifieds from time to time).

Good luck... and if you find one of these great (but underrated) brands and ever want to see one again, keep quiet about it