Thread: How many razors did Wade and Butcher make?

If I had Joe's W&Bs I'd throw mine away ! Great stuff, especially the one with the pearl scales. W&B made more razors than there is sand in the Sahara.

Originally Posted by JimmyHAD

If I had Joe's W&Bs I'd throw mine away ! Great stuff, especially the one with the pearl scales. W&B made more razors than there is sand in the Sahara.

Oops, the pearl scaled W&B was a lot more than $28, maybe 28x4. I must be getting old, I forgot about that one. Thanks Jimmy.

Originally Posted by Joed

Oops, the pearl scaled W&B was a lot more than $28, maybe 28x4. I must be getting old, I forgot about that one. Thanks Jimmy.

I do the same thing, ya get so many that when you go through them you find stuff you didn't remember you had. Kind of cool really.

It's only a guess, but I would venture to say it was easily in the hundreds of thousands, if not in the millions.

I believe Wade and Butcher was in operation for in the neighborhood of 100 years making razors. During most of that time, the straight razor was an every-day item owned by just about every man with a steady job. Of the various options out there, Sheffield steel was highly respected (and still is), and W&B was a highly respected and prolific maker. It also appears that they were well marketed with some models directed at the bargain conscious, others at the "gentlemen" and other still that were geared towards barbers. Good marketing + good quality = huge sales. So I think, as you imply, that the availability of them today is a testament to how common they once were.

As for the cost/hype, that's a mixed bag. Some of it is certainly hype. For instance, I put a nice W&B wedge in the classified recently for half of what it would have sold for 2 years ago, and after a week I gave up and pulled the add. For now I'll just keep using it because whether the market will bear the price or not, it's worth enough to me that I'm not interested in selling for less.

On the other hand, because it is a "known brand" you can buy one and you'll know for certain that it's good quality sheffield steel. You'll be able to find out when it was manufactured within a decade or so, and you'll know that it will almost certainly take a good edge. That has real value.

I'm not sure if it's still the case since I haven't been buying much lately, but about a year ago there was a HUGE run on Friodurs. You couldn't touch one for less than $100, and some of them went for several hundred. It was the flavor of the month.

I guess what it comes down to is that all the razors that are periodically the FotM are great razors, but while they're temporarily inflated is when you sell, not when you buy.

You see the same phenomenon with almost any luxury good, there's a big frenzy, the incremental market supply dries up as collectors hoard their goods and buyers drive the prices up. Once the frenzy slows the collectors start putting their supply on the market driving the prices down, then prices plummet. This happens with wine all the time. I think the same will happen with big W&B's. There were far too many produced to support the current relative pricing, once collectors start to sell their inventory. I think the people that are paying $500 plus for these things on ebay will wish they hadn't in a year or two. For me, what is fun is to figure out what will be the next cult brand. Wacker may have a shot?

Maybe the name makes them so popular. It sounds like a particulary extreme form of flyfishing.

Originally Posted by roughkype

Maybe the name makes them so popular. It sounds like a particulary extreme form of flyfishing.

Picture a guy walking out in a peaceful stream with a fishing pole and a meat cleaver. lol

Originally Posted by medicevans

Picture a guy walking out in a peaceful stream with a fishing pole and a meat cleaver. lol

Hey, some of those fish fight back!

At most of the streams I used to fish in Iowa I'd attract an audience of cows, so I guess you could do a surf and turf.

Originally Posted by carazor

You see the same phenomenon with almost any luxury good, there's a big frenzy, the incremental market supply dries up as collectors hoard their goods and buyers drive the prices up. Once the frenzy slows the collectors start putting their supply on the market driving the prices down, then prices plummet. This happens with wine all the time. I think the same will happen with big W&B's. There were far too many produced to support the current relative pricing, once collectors start to sell their inventory. I think the people that are paying $500 plus for these things on ebay will wish they hadn't in a year or two. For me, what is fun is to figure out what will be the next cult brand. Wacker may have a shot?

W&B's aren't the only ones . I think there may be less of these than you may think , that are in good condition , though . I'm not saying that they're worth some of the crazy money people are paying for them , because the demand for razors is relatively low compared to many other "collectables" . There are plenty of razors , out there , that are in poor condition , but good razors can be hard to find unless you go the ebay route , where you will most likely pay top dollar to get what you want .