Occassionally you just stumble across an absolute gem.
I bought this straight a few weeks ago. It looked a lot sadder when I got it. The scales are made from a very nice bronze coloured perspex with silver and gold flakes in them.
Whoever put it together had no idea. They had set the blade too far forward and it hit on the wedge and wouldn't close properly. The wedge also had no taper. It looks like they also used old nails as pins and hadn't peined it tigh so the blade just flopped everywhere. The blade had no rust or pitting but needed a good polish. The two things I spotted on the ebay listing though were the word Thiers on the tang and the term Special Pour Barbe Dour.
So this afternoon, I carefully unpinned it. I put a taper on the wedge and shortened the wedge so the blade would sit down in the scales. I hand polished the blade to bring back the shine. I didn't want to use the buffer and lose the writing. I found some fancy pins I bought a while ago and put it back together using them. All in all, I think it came up pretty well. I honed it up to 5k on the Shapton hones and then used a La Dresante coticule to finish it off.
I shaved with it this afternoon and it was almost a religious experience. This straight will out shave most of the razors I've got in my collection. To compare shave quality I have to think of razors like Filarmonica and Mappin Lancet Edge. It really is that good.
So, what did I pay for this straight? 12 Euros and 6 Euros postage. So for the equivalent of $26-$27 I've got a straight that is a definite keeper and one that puts many high value, big reputation razors to shame.