Source for resto-razors?

Hey guys,

New to the world of straights (first on the way), but very interested in the restoration aspect of the hobby.

I live in San Diego, and have had a hell of a time finding ANYTHING in the way of razors around here. Out of the antique stores I've shopped, I found but a single straight (pricey at that).

Do you guys mostly shop ebay, estate sales, or what? Or, if they do come through here, are there enough of you floating around the area to snag them all?

Not looking into making a business out of this, just snagging some oldie but goodies to restore/rescale and enjoy.

Best Regards,

Mark

Your best bet is always the Bay. Expensive.

Your better bet is to hit the small towns that have small antique stores. Chances are that they will have something. It may require driving, but it can be well worth it.

Estate sales are creepy, and you might be able to find something there, or garage sales.

Travel out and see what you find.

I've done a few restos and all were from eBay. In general, the more rust and discoloration, the cheaper you'll get blades. I also look for ones where the scales are a mess or falling apart. I plan to make new ones anyway. My first priority is to look for no chipping in the blade and minimal hone wear. With a little elbow grease you can always remove metal but it's tough to put it back on. You can get good deals on eBay if you are willing to do a lot of work on it. That's the point of the hobby anyway, to take something that is near death and bring new life to it, right?

I have had surprisingly good luck lately finding them in pawn shops I guess the economy is sending some that way.

I find that antique stores and the Bay are the best sources. The problem with Ebay is that some people photoshop their pictures and you don't always get what you think you see. I know on the east coast there are a lot of antique stores in I-81 and one store in Verona VA or WV along that route had a lot of razor though I found them to be inappropriately priced (ie, the heavily warn ones were the most expensive). They still have a nice Wostenhold Pipe razor with nice engraving on the blade for $65 I think.
Not that this helps, but you might find something on them in the web.
Good Luck

Thanks for the responses, guess it's as I feared.

Best Regards,

Mark

Quote:

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Originally Posted by slipangle

Hey guys,

New to the world of straights (first on the way), but very interested in the restoration aspect of the hobby.

I live in San Diego, and have had a hell of a time finding ANYTHING in the way of razors around here. Out of the antique stores I've shopped, I found but a single straight (pricey at that).

Do you guys mostly shop ebay, estate sales, or what? Or, if they do come through here, are there enough of you floating around the area to snag them all?

Not looking into making a business out of this, just snagging some oldie but goodies to restore/rescale and enjoy.

Best Regards,

Mark

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I have some razors I am refurbing. I think I have 4-5 I haven't started on yet. They have a variety of ailments including some very nice bone scales, that 1, unfortunately, has a broken tip. The others are generally scale challenged (a lot of aged horn here). The steel seems to be pretty good on all. There is some spotting and very little actual rust, but the steel beneath seems pretty good. It was a 9 razor lot and the ones I have worked on all turned out well (or are on their way to turning out well). Nice thing about this lot as the guy who had this collection seemed to prefer blades in the 6/8 range and none are below 5/8. I think one is a Non-XL and some lesser known names.

This AM my wife came into where I was working on them ans said "What in the world are you going to do with all those Razors?". This would be a good time to bring down the total razor count. She seems to think the fact that I have only one face has something to do with the number of razors. This morning wasn't the time to educate her.

PM me if interested and we can work something out.