Thread: Observations and request for pointers on hand sanding

Originally Posted by bluesman7

Good on you Montgomery! That is the typical argument heard about Gold Dollars too, and while it is very true from a money spent vs value standpoint, looking at it in that way misses the point.

Ha! Missing which point? I guess the point that Euclid made holds very true for him, and all power to him. He knows his stuff, his advice is always very helpful, he is always willing to share, and I'm sure he has an amazing collection of wonderful razors in beautiful condition. Maybe one day I will also see it that way. But for now I get a lot of enjoyment out of seeing what I can do with a razor which does not cost too much, and will probably never be worth much, but still has a nice thing of good quality hiding in there somewhere and has every chance of giving a great shave. I did buy one Gold Dollar, I spent ages sorting out the geometry, I got something out of it in the end, learnt quite a lot, but I didn't feel the magic. On the other hand, a while ago I bought a cheap lot of old razors, three in total, minimal cost, one had a big chip in it, one was in really rough homemade scales that were catching the blade, and the third was a really worn down small blade. But when I got hold of them, I realised that all three were covered in long-dried out grease. I could still see the fingerprints on the blades, and I realised that they had probably all been greased and put away together a long time ago. Pondering that, I imagined that if someone had gone to the trouble of making new scales for a blade, he was probably fairly attached to it, or at least liked it. Now, the chipped one has had the edge restored; that blade in the homemade scales has inherited a nice pair of bone scales from another razor that was past the point of no return, and I even found a box for it from the right maker. Sometimes when I use that razor I wonder about that old boy, long long gone by now, taking his razors, one of which he could well have used day in day out, year in year out, and I imagine him for some reason covering them in a layer of grease and putting them away for the very last time all those years ago. That's where the magic is for me.