This thread is what lead me to discover SRP. I bought a Giesen & Forsthoff razor a while back and was a bit disappointed so I hunted a bit for other's opinions and found this thread.
What made me disappointed was two things; the blade doesn't center very well when closing the razor. While the edge doesn't fully touch the scales, it's close. Secondly I thought the edge was a bit too dull to be called shave-ready. As it was, it even came with a letter recommending not doing anything to it before the first shave. I could probably have cut myself by using a sawing motion, but not much more. It certainly didn't do anything to my beard. And it had problems cutting a hair pulled tight even with a sawing motion.
I have honed it over several days, spread out mainly because it felt strange having to hone that much. Probably because I'm not experienced with a lot of different razors. Today though, I tried shaving with it
again and it performed very well. It'll be fun to see over time how well the edge holds.
Still, I would have been less disappointed if they just got rid of the shave-ready stamp.