Thread: Don't be wasteful–buy used

I light my smokes with a 60 year old lighter and shave with a 200 year old straight.

Only thing I buy new are socks and drawers. Well.... toilet paper.

Originally Posted by onimaru55

Shave ready ? I don't think so. If you do a minimum of research you are likely to end up with junk or something that will cost you the price of a new razor to restore... Unless you do the restoration yourself.

...for example, my new shave ready theo a koch: Vintage Marcella Straight Razor shave ready Germany - eBay (item 220751155105 end time Mar-18-11 16:27:56 PDT)

A lot of sellers that refurbish blades that I see also take pride in honing them for you. Part of the buyers package

Originally Posted by straightshot

Why buy new? Well, One day, a long long time ago, all of the vintage razors we use today were new. If new razors are not bought, noone will have any desire to keep making them as there will be no money in it. If production of straight razors stops, then way down the road, there will not be any vintage razors for our great, great, great, great...grand kids to learn to use. It is simple...keep the tradition alive!!

...if we are all buying new razors so our great, great, great, great grandkids can continue our tradition of supporting the 3 or so remaining razor manufacturers, they're gonna have a pretty poor selection to choose from

Originally Posted by Ryan82

Birnando brings up an excellent point. His post above perfectly justifies why new razor manufacturing is important. Straight razor shaving is, IMO, increasing in popularity at a very fast rate and is no longer simply a fringe market. It will only continue to grow. If the art of producing new razors is lost what would happen then? It's not a skill that can be learned by reading some internet posts and then doing it yourself. Not only would we lose a connection to our past, but there would be no production to match the increased demand. It would be a tragedy.....

I am not so sure about that, if there was sufficient interest the techniques could be reinvented. There is nothing particularly magic about razors that would make the manufacture a archane art compared to other high end blade manufacture. Some specific differences because of the differing nature of the requirements but not unsolvable.

The issue would be if there were no new razors being made how long could a reasonable number of people use the existing stock? And if that stock is depleted would you be able to build enough of a market to sustain a manufacturer other than the custom market?

Originally Posted by daflorc

...if we are all buying new razors so our great, great, great, great grandkids can continue our tradition of supporting the 3 or so remaining razor manufacturers, they're gonna have a pretty poor selection to choose from

Then we need to build a larger market for new razors to support more manufacturers.

Making the tooling for a different razor design could well cost in the hundreds of thousands of dollars. You need to be confident in enough sales of less common shapes to justify that expenditure.

Great dicussion,,, well not really

How about this answer...

You buy what you want, I will buy what I want, I won't look down on you, and you don't look down on me I think that about setlles it, don't you ????

Originally Posted by daflorc

...if we are all buying new razors so our great, great, great, great grandkids can continue our tradition of supporting the 3 or so remaining razor manufacturers, they're gonna have a pretty poor selection to choose from

That poor selection would look even poorer without them!

Originally Posted by gssixgun

Great dicussion,,, well not really

How about this answer...

You buy what you want, I will buy what I want, I won't look down on you, and you don't look down on me I think that about setlles it, don't you ????

I like the way you think

Originally Posted by gssixgun

How about this answer...
You buy what you want, I will buy what I want, I won't look down on you, and you don't look down on me I think that about setlles it, don't you ????

Who's looking down on anybody? I thought we were talking about individual's reasons for buying vintage or new

Those Gillettes are looking more like rocketships every day