Thread: Vintage Vs modern straight razors

Well that was fun but I'm getting bored with this.

Let's just say that any of us should be able to tell what was abuse and what was poor workmanship at least most of the time.

I'm going to throw my two cents in the pot.

Vintage vs modern razors is a nonsense question, but you have to have a bit of knowledge to understand why and how.

First things first. Vintage razors went from "pig neutering appliance" to "tool of a trade". While it was not uncommon for a family to have one, they were expensive enough to be transmitted as an inheritence. After all, the simplest razor would cost several days of work for a base worker, and were not an absolute necessity when you had barbers all around and only needed to be clean for church.
They were expensive to produce, and a lot of innovation has been invested in in order to lower the price while maintaining expectations (such as the "Picault framebacks" for example)

The quality on Thiers razors was notably fickle, ranging from very bad from very good, throughout the 19th century. Even in the same brand on the same model you'd have the same quality issues and irregularity that you find on GD razors nowadays.
Haute Marne makers did achieve a better level of quality and reliability, but even they had several levels of prices and quality for their goods, and the quality of the steel was a major point in the price.

On the other hand, unless like yours truly, you spend a lot of time in back country flea markets, you seldom see the worst than has been produced.
Come on, we are suckers for ivory, tortoise or MOP, the kind of razors we are gunning for when looking for vintage are things that nowadays none of us could afford, except for a few whales.
So if you want to compare, say, a vintage Weiss or Lund to anything modern, you would have to look for the best of the best, damn the price.

I'd say low end products are equally shitty, high end products can be either shitty and beautiful or just completely high end. Whatever the time, whatever the product.

But then again, the law does not change. There is no absolute best razor. Only razors you can find that best suit your skin and hair.

I have two razors from the same renown French smith.
One was ordered initially by a good friend of mine. State of the art thing. The steel is SC145 a highly technical steel created by Achim Wirtz, just a metric ton of it has been made AFAIK. Hollow ground. Suited my friend fine but he was looking for something even better. Feels horrible with my skin and hair.
The other was custom made to order by me, reflecting my taste for vintage blades in several aspects. It is absolutely perfect in every way but one : bit too noisy as a wedge for my taste.

And that's my last point : it is also a matter of perception and expectations.
I often defend the motion that hollow ground razors could have happened far earlier in the history of razors. People just DID NOT want them. A noisy razor in the 19th century was a bad razor. They were not "singing blades", they were "rattlers". You can even find patents for hollowed but silent razors (with a half rattler grind if memory serves). What is good and bad changes from time to time, from person to person.

Well, anyway, I stand my point. The question is nonsensical your honor.

What does that have to do with the price of tea in china????

Of course everybody has different opinions and everything is relative. I dare say in this world many if not most love an electric shaver and in this country most use a Gillette cartridge razor and love it. Does that make them better and how do you judge better?

Straight Razors were common items made by the zillions. Everyone had a couple at least, men and women. If you look at a vintage fancy razor from a set with sterling scales and fancy work on the spine and blade and compare that to a common razor do you think the blade quality or workmanship is inferior? I very much doubt it.

When we beat the old dead horse about modern vs vintage you are looking at items that are very old and have been used and abused and you are comparing those to brand spanking new items so any comparison is invalid anyway. I also hope we are not bringing up the notion that most went to a barber and rarely shaved themselves. In many parts of the world people could barely feed themselves let alone go to a barber on a regular basis.

I wonder 100 years from now when someone picks up a Gold Dollar or a Gillette what they will think about it compared to whatever is being made then.

Originally Posted by Aggelos

I have two razors from the same renown French smith.
One was ordered initially by a good friend of mine. State of the art thing. The steel is SC145 a highly technical steel created by Achim Wirtz, just a metric ton of it has been made AFAIK. Hollow ground. Suited my friend fine but he was looking for something even better. Feels horrible with my skin and hair.
The other was custom made to order by me, reflecting my taste for vintage blades in several aspects. It is absolutely perfect in every way but one : bit too noisy as a wedge for my taste.

Pics, pics........we want pics!!!

Originally Posted by Tathra11

Pics, pics........we want pics!!!

I might be having trouble inserting images. I hope the image is there. The two razors are the one with the black scales and the one with the yellow scales. The black one is the Wostenholm.