Crescent City Razors News for May 2020

I will be bumping the prices back up a buck or two on the April discounts sometime in the next day or two so last call for April Specials.

I threw together a DIY strop kit, ONE available, at an introductory price since it is sort of untested ground. Think of it as a beta version that you still have to pay something for. I really want to see what John Q Public can do with the raw materials gathered up in one package, so if a forum member grabs this, I do hope you will post a pic of it and enthrall us all with your build saga, and let me know what you like or don't like about it and what, in your OPINION, I could or should do to make it better. Don't feel hurt if I don't do it your way, but I might find your suggestions useful to me and beneficial to any future buyers.

My factory order is in for a case each of GD208 and GM666 (The Chinese for the most part apparently don't realize that Western Christian culture kind of doesn't like that number LOL) and they should ship within a few days. Fingers crossed. My last two GD66 orders from my (former) favorite reseller are still in limbo so I may run out. I think I have maybe 30 or so left that have not been unscaled or partially modified.

Ebay sales have suddenly taken off and the ebay listing for GD66 is putting the crescentcityrazors.com site sales to shame. I can think of a few possible reasons for this but I was hoping to just use ebay as sort of a crutch to get this thing off the ground, and phase out of fleabay at some point. Looks like I will need to continue to keep a fleabay presence though I might bump the price up a little higher than the home site if too many orders start coming in. I don't want this thing to start taking up my entire day. I got a pistol to build, beer to brew, cigars to roll, a boat to refit and two to get rid of, and a tremendous weight of honeydo activity on top of all that important stuff.

My contact for XRF testing probably won't be able to get the sample GD800 assayed for a few more weeks due to lockdown. But I don't think I will be selling them anyway due to what I see as a grossly inflated price for a razor that is no better than the 208. Requests might make me change my mind but pretty sure I won't want to mess with them for less than $45/ea shipped CONUS. I want to focus on the 208 and the P81, I think. They are not bad razors for what they are, and the price from the factory allows me to sell them at an attractive price. I am honing up a couple of 777's tonight but everyone tells me that the 666 is nicer than the 777.

I have a handful of cheap Chinese badger brushes and some swing-back shavettes that I might be listing on the site, soon. I occasionally use one of the shavettes and it is no worse, no better, than most in that price range. That is to say, I can get a pretty good single pass shave from it with a reasonably fresh Feather DE blade but a lot of guys will have the usual problems with it. The brush, well, I suspect the "silvertip" hair is dyed, and it is only about 22mm and I love my 30mm lathermonsters, but it's not too bad, and if I only had a few bucks to spend on a brush and my alternative was a boar, yeah I would be pretty satisfied. Not putting boars down, but they don't hold water like a badger and they are pretty darn prickly until they break in, I don't think anyone can dispute that. I should probably make a point of using the cheapie for a while and see how much it sheds but so far, with about a dozen shaves on it, I haven't lost more than a couple of hairs per shave. About par for Chinese brushes. The big name brush makers won't be shaking in their boots but maybe some newbies would like to get their hands on them, I don't know. I was giving them away, a year or two ago, with razors and that might just be their station in life.

So, somebody handy with their hands pounce on the strop kit, and see what you can make of it. As with the razors, I will accept returns for up to 30 days as long as you ship. And again I will remind all that the GD66 price will go up a bit, and the P81 as well.

And as always, your comments and suggestions and requests are welcome, but please, do not regard this thread as the place to vent your spleen at Gold Dollar razors in general. Start another thread if you want to howl with outrage at Chinese razors. This isn't the place. I am in this thread to sell, and to help newbies, not to fight a war of words. Your gentlemanly conduct will be appreciated, and if you want to debate on Gold Dollars, PM me the link of your thread or just "@" me and maybe in an idle moment I will weigh in, or maybe not.

New item added: Gold Monkey 777. Limited number available.

DHL finally has my 200pc GD factory order in their posession and delivery is scheduled for Friday, 22 May. I am looking forward to getting some of the GD208 razors ready to go. They hone up relatively easy. That is probably my favorite Gold Dollar model. I finally received, a bit late to do any good, a sample Gold Monkey 666 and in spite of the good reports I have heard on it, the one on my desk does not impress me. Hopefully it is not representative of the model cause I have 100 of them inbound with the 208's. Everyone told me that it was a better razor than the 777 but the five 777's I honed were not too bad, much nicer than the 666 I just got from an ebay seller in the UK. Honestly I don't even know how he honed it. The edge is not straight. Not smiling. Not frowning. Just goes ever which way. It's not really dull, it does treetop a little, but it's just weird. I will look at it tomorrow.

I have a piece of Shinki Hikaku shell cordovan on the way, and I hope to get 4 full size strops and 4 to 6 small travel strops out of it. More details when I have the piece in my hand. These won't be cheap! If I get 4 full size strops out of it, they will probably list at around $140 or so. Travel strops, who knows? I have always thought that because shell rolls without cracking, it would make a very nice travel strop. I know that the shell will be a joy to work with. I could almost see giving these away, with the joy of working in such fine leather my only reward. NOT!!! LOL! That is one expensive piece of leather, pricier than Horween. Sorry bout that! LOL!

Construction of the full size strops will be my usual style, each end having a cowhide bolster, a big heavy D ring, and three chicago screws, no secondary. Width will be 2-3/4" or maybe a full 3". I might sew the bolsters on, rather than use Chicago screws. The travel strops will have sewn triangular bolsters with a single sewn grommet in each end, with a leather thong and/or paracord for hanging from irregular hanging points. My goal is to have zero metal involved. Width on these will be 2" or maybe 2-1/4". I figured I would let SRP and TSD members have first crack at these. I wish I could do the same on B&B but I can't afford the vendor tag over there so I can't promote.

The seller is taking a few days to ship orders right now so I figure early next week I should have the piece, and I will share more details.

Meanwhile, at the other end of the price/quality spectrum, I got the sample "shave ready" GM666 I ordered from a UK ebay seller straightened out nicely. Shaved half and half with it, and a GM777 that is in my rotation. Predictably, both shaved the same, handled the same. The 777 was a bit easier to hone due to the straighter edge and generally more careful grinding. I am hoping that the incoming shipment of GM666 will be better than this one was. Wow that edge was ziggy. Took it to the 120 shapton which did the heavy lifting pretty quickly, with zero chipping, which was quite welcome. I will be using that stone more, in the future, I am sure. Before and after pics tonight or tomorrow on another thread.

Delivery of my case each of GM666 and GD208 still scheduled for Friday. Tracking shows the shipment moving around and getting "processed" a lot but it's not on a plane yet. Knock on wood. Fingers crossed.