Thread: Need Kanji (Japanese) help on a Japanese Frameback Razor

I'd like to know just what this razor is. I got it cheap off of ebay last week, and it appears that it was never for the export market as there's nothing in english on it.

Can anyone help me with the Kanji? If not, no big deal. It came in a fairly generic box that had the worlds "Best Steel" on it. I've seen that on a lot of things though and there wasn't anything about the razor that struck me honing it (it doesn't seem overly hard or anything and responded to the natural stones just fine).

I


Thanks in advance.

(bigger pictures)
http://img593.imageshack.us/img593/6766/p1060186.jpg
http://img37.imageshack.us/img37/3422/p1060188w.jpg

Thanks to Stu Tierney (from toolsfromjapan ), it says "best steel" on one side and "miyabun" on the other side.

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.. who is either a knife seller or manufacturer (or maybe both?)

I still haven't shaved with it, it's only gotten rough treatment at the edge so far...grinding it close to a straight even edge and getting a chip out of it, but I should be able to clean up the edge and shave with it this weekend.

It's a heavy booger, branding is maybe not a lot different than private branded hardware store razors over here? I'm sure it will be fine.

Send a PM to JimR with a link to this thread. He lives in Japan and may know something about who made the razor.

As long as it doesn't say "pot metal, for display purposes only" (would've figured that out cleaning up the edge, of course), I'm cool with it. It was $20 shipped maybe because the seller had lumped it with a horrific looking razor that I'm sure is what most people first saw when they looked at the auction. And some surface rust, but you could tell from the pictures it was mostly superficial:

Razor linky

It didn't appear to have been used, but it did have a small chip in the edge to get out. The unhardened frame is sort of a pain in the arse, it drags with friction on a hone, and (though I'm not that interested in avoiding honewear at all costs on a $20 razor) it definitely got itself a little bit of honewear on the grind. I don't mind as much as is on it, it's the last time it will touch a medium grit or coarser stone.

Not especially finely finished, nor are the scales too impressive (compared to something like a hayashi or something more showy), they were a bit rough and chunky.