Thread: Henckels Friodur Spine/Vintage Question

Hello, I am looking at the 8/8 friodur in order to try out a large razor. The sites I am looking at both have them. My questions is were their vintage 8/8 friodur and how do you tell those from the modern regrinds?
I am looking and one difference I see is the spine work, they have different patterns. Thank you for your help.

I have always broken Friodurs into Three Generations in my mind..

There are the older Henckels I would guess the cutoff is about 1960 and earlier these tend to be very smooth shavers and to find one in a larger size is pretty rare...

The second generation is what you have a picture of there, now I have read all kinds of stories about these razors, but honestly what is really true, I don't know what to believe, as I have never seen any proof... I can tell you that I have honed at least 200 different ones and every one has had a nice straight grind and given up a good shave.. For those of us that Restore /Customize razors the tangs on these tend to give some small headaches..
The edges take a bit more "thought" about what stones/hones to use, and a bit more finesse to get a smooth edge out of them... But in the end when the rubber hits the road or the lather hits the face they are very good shavers...

The third generation was the brand new offings from Henckels that released about 2 years ago, these are a whole different razor and not available in that size that I have ever seen...

There was also a Single Man (logo) Henckels that was found out there about a year ago that I did some testing on that was also a ok shaver nothing special nothing bad just a shaver...

I have an 8/8 like that, got it over at Shavingshop. It's been very reliable and is a superb shaver.

Here are two original Henckels Friodur razors. The square point is a 7/8's and the round point an 8/8's. All of the Original Fridour's I have and have seen have the Friodur inlay. THe others like you picture have original Friodur blanks but may have been professionally ground after they were discontinued. Do note that to the best of my knowledge, the only Henckels that were ground and assembled by Henckels are stamped Zwillingswerk. The rest were ground and assembled in other locations around the world, usually in the country they were sold in.

I picked up one of the "regrinds" a while back, and it was such a sloppy and uneven job, I couldnt stand looking at it. Never even bothered trying to hone or shave with it. Just put it back up for sale.

Ok, sounds like no matter where I buy it will not be a true vintage. I am confused about when Joed mentioned Zwillingswerk. One of the razors for sure has Zwillingswerk on the tang. Would that mean there is a chance it is a real vintage? The two I am looking at are this one from CS and the other from TheShaveingShop. Let me know if one seems better than the other. The one on CS is being rescaled so the problem mentioned is no longer a problem.

One day I held my vintage friodur next to the scalloped back newer version and the differences were obvious. The old one was heavier despite being 6/8 and the newer one 7/8. It had thicker spine, not only as in 'missing metal due to scalloping' kind of way, but just thicker sideways too, and the grind was somewhat different (again the old one is weighed more towards the spine, and then hollows out a lot).

I have a photograph somewhere, so if I have time I'll look for it later tonight.

I don't think you can just buy the vintage ones - those are no longer produced, so you only get them when somebody sells one of theirs. The stuff that's in stock at various retailers is the newer thing - most likely newly ground (may be newly heat treated too) old blanks.

If it helps, I suspect they did produce the vintage ones past the 60's.

This one was made for the 1981 250th year anniversary.



I also have two other Vintage models: #14 and #17 (8/8 and 7/8 respectively). I've never been tempted to buy one of the new regrinds, the fit and finish looks pretty random.

I have an 8/8 on the way, so I'll add photos and observations when I get it. It's from the newly-ground blanks, so I imagine it would be quite different.

At one time I purchased a scalloped 7/8ths, but I returned it as I was not satisfied with the quality of the scalloping. I never shaved with it.

Another 250th anniversary:


My two favorites:


I lean toward the vintage 72 1/2 where the 72 1/2 is stamped on the shank rather than the tail.

My limited experience indicates the tail is longer, thinner, and more elegant on the shank stamped versions. Either will shave equally as well and can be had up to 7/8ths, although mine are all 13/16ths.