My father had one when I was a kid. I'm pretty sure it was my grandfather's which he got from him when he died. He didn't really use it much but he did also own a sharpening business. He would go out to job sites and pick up saws to sharpen but also people would bring him knives, scissors and occasionally razors to sharpen. He had a knack for those kinds of skills and could get anything "razor sharp." Anyway, I just always romanticized about that thing; the shaving, honing, stropping, the whole bit. One Saturday night when I had just started shaving I got out his straight and tried it out. I can remember thinking, "wow, that was harder than I thought but, huh, not so bad." Next morning we went to church and the youth director looked at me and said, "did you get attacked by a cat?" I hadn't even noticed because they didn't show up right away but I had all these tiny cuts all over my face. I think the thing that really got me started shaving with one though was that I started cutting my own hair (flat top/ whole other story) and I could shave my own neck with a safety razor in the mirror (you need three mirrors BTW) but it was never as close as the barber got it with a straight and later shavette so I went out and bought a hair shaper razor from the barber/beauty supply which I still have today and use occasionally. One thing > another I remember my first foray with the straight of my Dad's and started shaving my face with it.
Years go by and I wound up getting his razor which I still have. I also wound up with his barber hones and the old belt he used for a strop and a bunch of his other hones. It was still just a casual interest until one day my wife took me to an antique store as a novel thing to do. In one case were some straights which were affordable so I bought a couple. Took them home, cleaned them up, tried to hone them on the barber hones, tried to find information on their history, found SRP, segue, segue...+/-200 razors, a wheel barrow full of rocks and a string of dead animal skins and cloth later here I am writing about how I became obsessed with this hobby; The End
.....or is it just the beginning???