Hey all,
Figured I should introduce myself since you all are the reason I'm here.
Been wet-shaving with a DE for about 5 years. Started out with a cheapish (?) Edwin Jagger Plaza set and started trying out different blades to find a combination I liked. I settled on Astra and Feather as my go to blades for that razor.
I eventually got a Merkur 34C as a gift which felt like a big improvement to the Edwin Jagger and once again tried out different blades and only the Feather blades gave me a shave I felt was good enough.
But lately I have felt like the 34C has been lacking, can't really put my finger on what's missing but I don't get the same satisfaction when shaving with it. So I started looking for a new razor but since I didn't know what was missing with the 34C I couldn't decide on a new razor type. An adjustable (Merkur Futur) seemed interesting but also the Feather AS-D2 and Tatara Masamune piqued my interest, but spending that money on something that might not be right just didn't sit right with me.
I did a lot of reading and research and kept finding myself back here at B&B reading reviews and opinions and the more I read, the more I heard about vintage razors. Something I had not even considered, but perhaps it could be a way to find the razor that would fit me.
So I changed my research and started focusing on vintage razors instead. I still didn't know what razor I should go for, so I checked what was available for sale. Can't say it was a mistake, but I was not expecting what happened next.
I found a seller on eBay that had several vintage razors for sale at very fair prices and they seemed to be in decent shape as well. I looked through his inventory and probably had 10 or 12 razors that were interesting, some of them were the same model but condition or year differed. I narrowed it down to 6 razors and submitted offers for all of them and to my surprise all the offers got accepted.
That was this past weekend, so now I had 6 razors arriving within a couple of weeks. I didn't do much research to verify the seller information but it seemed correct in terms of models and so on.
Anyway, it didn't stop there. I found an old Gillette razor for sale on an advertising site in my country and it was so cheap I couldn't help myself from buying it. The images were poor but I did spend a lot of time checking Mr-razor's website to see if I could identify it and I think I know what it is, but won't know for sure until it arrives.
After that shopping spree I took a deep breath, but something was missing. I had not bought an open comb razor.
So I decided to check an auction site in my country but not expecting much since the vintage razor market isn't exactly big here, at least as far as I know.
As luck would have it there were actually some for sale, even open comb ones. One open comb caught my eye but description was lackluster and images not great, but I think I was able to identify this one as well and just had to buy it.
So long story short, you fine B&B folks have been massive enablers and I now have 8 vintage(from 1940s to 1970) razors on the way. The first two should be here within a day or two while the others are probably a week or two away.
And apologies for the mystery about exact models, I plan to do a journal on my journey to find "my" razor and finding and identifying razors will be a part of that journey.
Oh, and that latest auction site, it has 7 other razors I'm quite keen on buying but they are proper auctions so we'll see if I end up with the winning bid.
Figured I should introduce myself since you all are the reason I'm here.
Been wet-shaving with a DE for about 5 years. Started out with a cheapish (?) Edwin Jagger Plaza set and started trying out different blades to find a combination I liked. I settled on Astra and Feather as my go to blades for that razor.
I eventually got a Merkur 34C as a gift which felt like a big improvement to the Edwin Jagger and once again tried out different blades and only the Feather blades gave me a shave I felt was good enough.
But lately I have felt like the 34C has been lacking, can't really put my finger on what's missing but I don't get the same satisfaction when shaving with it. So I started looking for a new razor but since I didn't know what was missing with the 34C I couldn't decide on a new razor type. An adjustable (Merkur Futur) seemed interesting but also the Feather AS-D2 and Tatara Masamune piqued my interest, but spending that money on something that might not be right just didn't sit right with me.
I did a lot of reading and research and kept finding myself back here at B&B reading reviews and opinions and the more I read, the more I heard about vintage razors. Something I had not even considered, but perhaps it could be a way to find the razor that would fit me.
So I changed my research and started focusing on vintage razors instead. I still didn't know what razor I should go for, so I checked what was available for sale. Can't say it was a mistake, but I was not expecting what happened next.
I found a seller on eBay that had several vintage razors for sale at very fair prices and they seemed to be in decent shape as well. I looked through his inventory and probably had 10 or 12 razors that were interesting, some of them were the same model but condition or year differed. I narrowed it down to 6 razors and submitted offers for all of them and to my surprise all the offers got accepted.
That was this past weekend, so now I had 6 razors arriving within a couple of weeks. I didn't do much research to verify the seller information but it seemed correct in terms of models and so on.
Anyway, it didn't stop there. I found an old Gillette razor for sale on an advertising site in my country and it was so cheap I couldn't help myself from buying it. The images were poor but I did spend a lot of time checking Mr-razor's website to see if I could identify it and I think I know what it is, but won't know for sure until it arrives.
After that shopping spree I took a deep breath, but something was missing. I had not bought an open comb razor.
So I decided to check an auction site in my country but not expecting much since the vintage razor market isn't exactly big here, at least as far as I know.
As luck would have it there were actually some for sale, even open comb ones. One open comb caught my eye but description was lackluster and images not great, but I think I was able to identify this one as well and just had to buy it.
So long story short, you fine B&B folks have been massive enablers and I now have 8 vintage(from 1940s to 1970) razors on the way. The first two should be here within a day or two while the others are probably a week or two away.
And apologies for the mystery about exact models, I plan to do a journal on my journey to find "my" razor and finding and identifying razors will be a part of that journey.
Oh, and that latest auction site, it has 7 other razors I'm quite keen on buying but they are proper auctions so we'll see if I end up with the winning bid.
