The exact sort of razor you shouldn't buy.
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The seller had photographed this in such a way that the hone wear wasn't fully apparent, but there are plenty of other reasons I shouldn't have bought it.
Those faux-tortoise scales for instance. That type is regularly made of celluloid (which the seller thought it was -- or bakelite), and celluloid scales with clear yellow parts are Not Good. It's been buffed, which you can tell by the lack of darkening in the blade-face etching. Even without seeing the taper, the hone line is wide on one side, narrow on the other and varies considerably along the length.
This was not a good candidate for a workable razor. Definitely not one for an attractive razor.
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I noticed that the pitting on the blade happened in two types. Fully random and patterned where the blade touches the scales, meaning where moisture collected. It did not have any relationship to the pattern on the scales. That means the scales were probably not celluloid. Which meant they're probably lucite, dating the razor to some point after 1933. That was why I jumped on it. I figured that if nothing else the scales would be nice for another razor.
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I've always admired how the Bengall logo has more or less remained unchanged since the 1770's.
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Oh boy. There was a picture like this on the auction, but I couldn't be sure if it was perspective distortion or, as turns out to be the case, significant hone wear. There's even a bit of a frown in the middle.
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Things are not quite what they appear, however. It seems to me like the blade was specifically modified to taper down like that. The spine tapers with it, and while the bevel is fairly wide and uneven, it is not what I'd expect from incompetent honing. The blade lays perfectly flat on the hone and doesn't require anything but simple X-strokes.
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It look a lot of work to get that far into the spine. When I got it, the scratch pattern on those big flattened hone lines was very fine, like you'd expect to see off a quality finishing hone.
With all of that in mind I taped up the spine (habit), gave it a little bit of 8k to wake up the edge and then some quality time on one of my C-Nat hones. The blade took an edge like it had been waiting in line.
I've not had a chance to shave with it yet. I fully expect it to be a superb shaver, and definitely one of my go-to travel razors.