Thread: This past weekend's find

I was at a second hand store in the town near our cabin. While my wife was looking at some practical things, I asked the owner if he had any straight razors. He didn't but what he did have was a leather roll up with velvet lining and space for 18 razors. There was some cloth that you fold over the razors to protect them. There was only a single scratch on it.

I don't think this is something you run across every day.

The price was $2.


I told my wife that the money I saved on this could easily serve to fill it with razors.

I don't think she bought it.

Father's Day is coming up

Pics please! This is the SHOW and tell forum.

^ Exactly! Pics please.

Originally Posted by hoglahoo

Father's Day is coming up

Played that card already. She is letting me get a custom from Butch.

Maybe she will let me borrow her digital camera.

I came across a pretty neat one of those recently.

It was in an antique store I was checking out. Two middle-aged women were working there and I asked them to bring out the numerous razors I saw behind a glass display of theirs. The case I've mentioned had six slots for the razors. It had a black leather exterior and a rich red fabric interior. It rolled up and then a little cord at the end of the roll wrapped around everything to keep it together. It was actually full of razors that were for sale. The guy wanted sixty five dollars for each of them. Most of them sucked. Maybe one of them was somewhat decent, but if I had to put an accurate price on it, I'd say it was worth ten to fifteen dollars. They had 10 dollar razors aside from this roll up thing. They were pretty lousy too. Although an older guy did come in and buy one while I was there. I was amused by the conversation he had with the woman behind the counter about it.

The razor was salvageable if he was prepared to do some metal polishing, a little sanding, etc. A scale replacemnent wouldn't have hurt the thing, either. It was a Carbo-Magnetic razor he was buying. Seven or eight bucks, I think he paid. He started telling the woman in a somewhat authoritative voice that he'd also like one of the coffins underneath the glass, because it was "the original box for it." It wasn't. Another make entirely.

The woman tried to add her two cents about the razor too, telling him "The handle is ivory." I had to correct her on that one, of course, since the celluloid he had in his hand didn't even slightly resemble what ivory looks like.

Before I had let on that I knew about razors, she also started to give me a history lesson on that razor carry-all. "Salesmen would fill this with razors and go door to door showing people what he had to offer in the way of grooming equipment." I told her that it was a possibility, and that salesmen definitely did sell razors in the door to door fashion.... but it was free of obvious wear, had no maker's marks on it, and with only six slots for razors, my first thought was that this was a man's travel case for his weekly razor rotation, or maybe just where he stored them. It seemed more plausible to me. Seven-day razor sets were very common, as we all know, so it stands to reason that a place to carry a number of razors would be something the average guy wanted. Heck, I am the average modern guy, and that is what I want. Wants and desires don't change much over the years... that wasn't no salesman's pouch, yo.

I haven't been able to get a pic of my own (still a 35mm guy), but found this one that is just like mine except mine has black velvet and has room for 18 razors:
Straight Razor Velvet Lined Valet, 1940's - SH-0076