Thread: Solingen or Sheffield?

I feel the classic English blades from W&B and J. Rodgers give the smoothest shave. The next best are TIs drawn from Sheffield steel. The DOVO's give a great shave but are not as slick. I have also found the old English blades yield a sharp edge with little effort. My current favorite is my 6/8's W&B.

I like all that have tried, but I do tend to favor the Sheffields. When I each 100 then I may feel differently.

Nothing bad about Solingen razors. There are a lot of very nice Solingen razors.
But I prefer Sheffield.

Sheffield for me too. They just feel a lot less hard, brittle and a lot nicer on both hone and face.

Mykel

Sheffields for me.

I prefer the styling, the variety and the steel. I like Solingen razors but I have way more Sheffields in my arsenal.

I honestly do not have a preference. I enjoy each and every razor for it's attributes and each and every one brings something special to the shave den or the hones. Some days I prefer one over the others but it is not limited to Sheffield or Solingen. The next day or so I would prefer a different blade.

I am finding this thread very interesting and surprising. In the 1850s or '60s hollow grinding was developed and came to quickly dominate the market. By the 1870s or '80s the wedge was basically gone according to Robert Doyle's "Collecting Straight Razors".

(I didn't say all gone)

So what intrigues me is that most Sheffields I've gotten are, if not full wedge profiles, close to it. By the time the full hollow became ubiquitous, with Solingen dominating the market, even the hollow ground Sheffields were half or quarter hollow ..... rather than full hollow, with a few exceptions near the end of their production.

So this tells me that our little niche market is populated largely by guys who prefer the heavier grinds. As I mentioned in an earlier post, I prefer the aesthetics of the Sheffields, but the Solingen full hollows are so much easier to hone. Anyway, as the kids say it's all good. Glad we have the variety to choose from.

Though I currently have more Solingens than Sheffields in my rotation, I much prefer shaving with a wedge, which tilts my personal preference to the British blades - as I find Solingen wedges to be rare.

It may help that I'm half English, and was born and raised for half my life in Scotland. The other half is Texan, so until I find a Shumate from Austin, I'll have to make do!

+1 for Sheffield steel: they're a piece of cake to hone.

All these properties and advantages of the Sheffield razors are still valid for the “Le Grelot” razors?

This is strange as I only recently realised after purchasing 10+ solingens that I had no sheffields, but I did buy the solingens for their looks, but they shave very well.

Now have a shakespeare sheffield, gonna try it out, and an american to try as well.