J Rodgers near wedge, dorko and filis.

Hello. First of all, thank you for encouraging me to fight humidity and rust instead of trying to avoid the problem by using stainless steel. I got some aluminimum silicate, in theory it's good enough to steal all humidity from fully saturated sillica gel, if anybody is interested and don't know about it. Still I have to make or buy a cedar box, for now a mason jar is doing well.

The SS Dorko (newer one) was already on it's way so I got it, too bad beacause I could had bought a filarmonica special instead. I also ordered the 13 DT filarmonica, it has some (very even) spine wear but it seems to be a very good one. It has the silver logo inserted in the scales and not printed like the newer ones. It also came with a very old piece of paper saying it's a "Carlos III" (18th century king of spain) series plus a reference number (22415) and some statements about it's quality. It's signed by Jose Monserrat by hand. After 30 laps on a naniwa 10K I think it's shaving quite better than my Aust ever did. It has a better feedback, I can hear the individual cracking of each hair instead of the continous "wroooosh" of the Aust. I think this allows me to perfectly adjust the force of my hand as to have a perfect shave with the very minimum amount of force needed. I'm not saying the Aust is bad but It bites my skin too easily and to shave I have to push it a little bit further which causes a bit of irritation. Maybe I have to spend a little more time improving the honing technique with it.



But, the filarmonica did so easily well and I got so interested about them, I had to buy a Tridur to try one EPBD, mostly because everybody says those are the better ones and I manage to find one locally. As I can't buy internationally, I couldn't avoid buying it otherwise I'll probably never get one. The spine has some uneven wear and I have to set a new bevel because the edge is not chipped but completely uneven.


I also started questioning myself about how different razors could give different shaves, so I found another extremely rare (locally) Joseph Rodgers near wedge, it seems to be new. It was from a very old woman who had it from his grandfather. She had another identical one, and a Herder but both used and in bad shape. Still I have to learn to hone this one and if anybody wants to do so, I'd like to hear opinions about polishing it. It's seems to be quite old, could it be "special" (as a collectible) enough I could regret having it polished in the future? If your can share any information about this razor, please I'd love to read that.


And of course, I'd like to ask. Do other vintages (Herder, etc) could shine some light on different aspects of the quality of the shave? As of today, there is anything considered "better" than a filarmonica 14 EPBD so many people seem to talk about? By better I mean, easily cutting hair while being smooth and not giving any irritation. And of course if possible, ease of maintenace to achieve these results. Filarmonicas seems to have all that.



PD: I also bought two pieces of veg tanned leather. Argentina have a huge old tradition of breeding cows, riding horses and making things with leather (we even have our half of the widest river on earth quite contaminated with chromium because of that). So I had to pay 3U$D for each on a saddlery & leather shop. In contrast, it's going to be painful to get some good chrox abroad.

Looks like you have gotten yourself some fine razors in good condition. I would not worry about polishing the Joseph Rodgers as they made a great many razors. You can find some information here STRAZORS.com - all about classic razors - Joseph Rodgers & Sons, Sheffield. . The noise a razor makes while shaving depends on the grind of the razor with near wedges being silent and the very hollow ground the noisiest often referred to as a singing razor.

There were a huge number of razor makers and they made a huge number of razors of which a few are well know and have a reputation as good shavers. The Fillis are among the better know brands but many vintage razors of lesser known makers are capable of giving a shave that is smooth, close and comfortable. When the world shaved with straight razors makers did not last long making poor quality razors. As big a factor in how a razor shaves as the quality of the razor is the ability of the person honing it to produce an edge that is both sharp and comfortable on the face at the same time.

Bob

Interesting information, thank you. If possible I'd like to aproximate the date of manufacturing of the Rodgers but I can't find mine in the catalog. It's a shoulderles, curved and very very shallow blade. It has stamped "OLD ENGLISH RAZOR" in the middle of the blade with very fine italic letters (?).

yes, very nice start to your collection!

Thank you. This is becoming addictive. ;)