Thread: Razor Antiquing

Over the weekend I headed over to a local antique shop to see if I could find any straight razors at a reasonable price. Being new to this I didn't know what to look for. I found an antique shop that had a good collection of them but was imidiatley discouraged by the price all of them were no less than $120.00 and for that price i could just buy a new one. I found this to be ridiculous because they were all pretty old and dull some even rusted. After going through eBay I found many that we're anywhere from 20 to 60 but as with anything else in eBay you don't know what you bought until you have it in your hands. Do you guys trust ebay with purchasing razors to recondition? What is an alright price to pay for a vintage razor?

Unfortunately you ask questions with no clear answers.
How much should I pay? ->How much do you want it?
as for trusting ebay, I think the general theory is to let the buyer beware. Many sellers wouldn't know if there was a problem anyway, so you can't trust them to tell you.

The standard, and fully accurate reply is: razors are worth what someone is willing to pay.

Without seeing the razors that were offered for no less than $120, I can't really tell you if it was a case of overenthusiastic pricing. Certainly there are plenty of razors that regularly sell for that and more on eBay, even in bad condition, because they can be fixed and sold for much more. Others will sell for that and more because they have rare or unusual scales, and scale collectors work in parallel to razor collectors and are often willing to spend much more for scales than razor collectors are for blades.

Personally, as someone in the greater San Diego area, I've found antique store prices to be all over the map. I have gotten great deals, I have seen things I would never in a million years buy, and I've bought razors that were priced at the exact upper limit of my interest (and kudos to the vendors who can work that math).

Personally, I have bought most of my razors through eBay. That's somewhere in the vicinity of 80 razors. I aim for the cheap stuff and then I fix it, but it is always, always a gamble. I much prefer being able to hold it in my hand before buying it, but the supply in antique stores has thinned out considerably.