Thread: My Great Grandfather's Kropp

Hi Ladies and Gents,

I'm new to the forum! Hope you don't mind a South African joining in.

I got my interest piqued the other day when reading an article about straight razors, and started chatting to my father about it, and this morning, after a sleepless night for preparing for an exam, he handed me a little box with my Great Grandfather's Osbourne, Garrett & Co. 'Kropp' contained inside it.

I'm quite psyched about it. I will post photo's of it as soon as I have it in a neat condition (considering it has 50+ years worth of dust on it).

I'm really glad I decided to sign up, although I can't do much other than chat. Unfortunately living in ZA has it's limits. I found out today a whetstone would cost me one-fith my salary, and ever since Gillette made it's debut in ZA, all the old folks tossed out their straight razors, so finding an antique to serve as a "project razor", would be harder than finding a chicken with teeth!

Welcome! i think you´ll find the guys on here very accomodating and friendly, don´t worry about the current condition, post pics before you get going at it yourself, if you haven´t worked on one before you could do more harm than good. Great beginners section on here that gives walkthroughs on cleaning etc

Where might I find that? In the wiki? All I did for now is put some retoring oil on the plastic scales to give them some life and just gently wiped all the dust feom the blade with a microfibre cloth and ear buds(a.k.a. Cutips)

This should get you started

Category:Blade Restoration - Straight Razor Place Wiki

I would suspect it would need a honing too, maybe send off to one of the guys here, there's quite a few, hopefully some of the guys will chip in with details

Like I said in another thread:

Yeah, that would be a great option, only problem is I live in South Africa, and if that razor hits customs, it would be flagged as a weapon and be destroyed, and if not, the bloody baboons would mistreat it so badly, Glen would recieve it in a million pieces...

Have you spoken to customs about it? it might be worth asking, thats if you don't have a definitive answer already. the uk is also very strict about this kind of stuff but they get in ok. Over here virtually anything over three inches is considered a lethal weapon and technically illegal without a permit.

Greetings,

I have a Kropp and they are great shaver.

Best of luck with your endeavours.

The reason why I am afraid it would get stuck at customs here in South Africa is, when I ordered chain mailling supplies it got stuck, when I ordered a airbrush makeup thingey for my girlfriend, it got stuck and customs wanted a chemical composition sheet, when I ordered a green laser module then wanted a firearms license from me(beats the hell out of me why)...

So hopefully you can see why I dont want to take that risk with something that I hold dear to me.

wow, tough customs in SA.. and i absolutely understand

No, not tough, but incompetent. They are corrupt, so they try to make money every way possible, and they have no respect for anyone's possessions, thats why I fear to send it abroad. When I recieved my chain mailling supplies, all the packets were ripped open, all the colors and metals were mixed, and a quarter of everything was missing...$150 gone...