Thread: ScienceGuy's Collection

Absolutely gorgeous - history in your hands...makes me wonder, as I'm reading, Victor Hugo's, "The Hunchback of Notre Dame", that many of those razors were around during the time that was written and before.

Stunning!

BTW, I'll PM you my address and let you know which razors you can ship to me.

Back to watching the news on our Mayor....

Originally Posted by Razorthin

Great looking collection! My only question is, are you planning on restoring the steel of these razors to their original state?

It's an ongoing process deciding what to do. Generally, if they have traces of original finish, I'll leave that for historical purposes. If there's rust, I'll clean it off, and if it's been reground or abused, then I have no qualms doing full sanding work to get it close to original as I can.

I'm really touchy on the idea of restoration to original form, as it's very hard to do without knowing exactly what kind of finishes were on it and on what parts of the blade, and even then, a true crocus polish is very very hard to do, as it's got to be a uniform (no bumps or waves) mirror finish with crisp lines on the angle changes. I generally value crisp angles on the blade more than a polished surface, so soft wheel buffing is out. For sanding, even just holding the paper in your hands can lead to rounding edges, so I usually try to make semicircular forms to attach paper to in order to approximate the original grinding wheels (when you see a flat surface of a razor, like at the tang, it's not actually flat, but very slightly concaved because it was ground on a wheel, so if you try to sand it with a flat block, you'll preferentially pick up the edges first). That is, if I have time to do any of that anyway...

ScienceGuy, I am 50 years your senior and I want you to adopt me as your heir so I can inherit those baubles of beauty. It would be the incentive I'd need to live to 150.

Very nice pile!!!!! Thanks for sharing them!

Nice collection!

Have you by chance taken the "Science of printing your own money"?

Originally Posted by Lemur

Nice collection!

Have you by chance taken the "Science of printing your own money"?

Ha, no, instead just simple economics. My collection is largely self-funding. I do a lot of hunting at markets, and a lot of buying and selling on ebay. If you skim often enough you can find stuff cheap and clean it and sell it for much more. I am constantly selling off parts of my collection to get stuff I'm more interested in (though it helps that I seem to get lucky a lot). It means a smaller collection, and losing things I might regret later, but less financial input, and constantly distilling it down to really neat stuff.

I've tried just that myself but it's so hard to part from some razors / stones.
... and then I'm a lousy businessman, I rather give stuff away!

Originally Posted by Lemur

I've tried just that myself but it's so hard to part from some razors / stones.
... and then I'm a lousy businessman, I rather give stuff away!

I hear you Lemur! I will often buy some razors at a great price with the intent to resell them. After all cleaned up, honed and given a test drive... I adopt it.

Originally Posted by Badgister

I hear you Lemur! I will often buy some razors at a great price with the intent to resell them. After all cleaned up, honed and given a test drive... I adopt it.

I do have many regretted sales, especially when I look through my old pictures. But the grass is always greener, and there are always bigger fish I'm after.

Originally Posted by ScienceGuy

I do have many regretted sales, especially when I look through my old pictures. But the grass is always greener, and there are always bigger fish I'm after.

In better days, economically speaking, after quite a few bucks down the big hole that the ADs dig, I found harvesting the photo is as good , for me, as being temporary custodian of the object. None of us are taking any of "our collection" with us when we go.