Super Cheap Gold Dollar Razors

[Slash McCoy]

For now, I say don't get your GD66 razors off ebay. Get them from this vendor. http://www.buyincoins.com/. I have had flawless service from them so far and by far the best prices. Just ordered 40 more GD66's. $3.06 each. Including shipping from China. Yup. That's right. My 40 razor order totaled, after discount, to $122.36. How's that for cheap? The second order you place for 10 or more they will give you a discount code in your email. Plus there is a big price break at more than 10 razors. Anybody who orders one, should order 20, IMHO. So far, I have not had to pay duty on any of my numerous 10 to 20 pc orders. I might go for a 100 next time.

If everyone was to email them asking for #200, #300, #208, #100, #108, or whatever models, maybe they would listen, and stock them. Currently they only have the GD66 and some shavettes and a couple of absolutely garbage razors. I think if they carried the other models their prices would be unbeatable on them, too.

 

[kcb5150]

Ever order one of their strops out of morbid curiosity?

 

[SliceOfLife]

So, you're telling me you can identify steel alloys by the sparks thrown off a grinding wheel, without knowledge of the heat treatment the steel was subjected to? If so, you're far more talented and intuitive that any of the Diemakers I worked with, and many very gifted... But, so goes the disinformation and misinformation that passes for fact on the internet!

It's not a perfect science, but it's pretty reliable and it's something that at least a couple decades ago was taught in most high school metal shops. I'd be inclined to believe that Ceefuhs is right here. Of course if you really want to know for sure; it isn't unknowable, send it to a lab and I'd expect that for a few hundred dollars, you'll have your answer. Of course this is very tangential, when dozens of people with collections of vintage and modern razors worth several thousand dollars are using Gold Dollars and finding them to be fine shavers it would seem to be a pretty settled matter, and when you're demanding proof that they are of "good steel", you're really only shouting into the wind.




I'm tempted on the strop. The linen actually looks pretty viable. I wouldn't bet on the leather being much use though. For $4 I figure it'd be worth the gamble. If only I needed something else to justify the order.

 

[Chaloney]

I ordered a few of the strops. Should arrive any day now

 

[casus4844]

For now.....

If everyone was to email them asking for #200, #300, #208, #100, #108, or whatever models, maybe they would listen, and stock them. Currently they only have the GD66 and some shavettes and a couple of absolutely garbage razors. I think if they carried the other models their prices would be unbeatable on them, too.

I would so be on a group email if anyone decided to do it!

 

[Slash McCoy]

Ever order one of their strops out of morbid curiosity?

Yeah I got 5. They are worth the $3/ea I think. Okay for a sacrificial beginner strop I guess or maybe for travel. The D ring is just a piece of wire and they don't pack them very carefully so expect an occasional wrinkle. Very thin leather.

 

[Mayweather]

Greetings from Australia all,

I am new here and this is my first post. I have been using Safety Razor's for about 6 months and am starting to dabble in the world of Straight Razors. I have started out having a few shaves with a Dovo and Parker Shavette and looking to move onto a straight razor shortly. I was looking at these Gold Dollar Razors on Ebay and stumbled across this thread as well.

I would like to learn how to strop/hone a razor and have bought the Norton Stone Starter Kit from Amazon and have The Poor Man's Strop Kit from Larry @ WhippedDog on the way. People have mentioned that these razors will need to be modified to be able to shave with them. By modification do you mean honing it, or do they require more advanced modification?

If it's just honing they require i would like to pick up a few from Ebay to try to hone and make "shave ready". Given their lost cost, it won't hurt as much if i stuff a few up

Look forward to the responses.

 

[Chaloney]

They usually CAN be honed by positioning them on the hone so that the heel is angled forward far enough that the stabilizer is off the hone. Otherwise, the stabilizer, which is not ground properly on most go the gold dollar 66's, lifts the heel off the hone. Most razors do not have this problem. The minimum modification usually needed to make them hone and function like most razors is removal of most or all of the stabilizer. There are also many other modifications that can be made: thinning the spine to narrow the bevel angle, thinning/adjusting the tang so the razor fits scales better, replacing the scales with something that looks better (almost anything), changing the look by filing or carving the spine/tang with a dremel, etching.... The list goes on

You can find a very methodical approach to the functional mods here: http://badgerandblade.com/vb/showthread.php/282685-GD-Prep

this is more than most put the blades through. In the first couple pics you can see that two of the blades have had the stabilizer partially ground down and the third does not.

 

[bluesman 7]

Greetings from Australia all,

I am new here and this is my first post. I have been using Safety Razor's for about 6 months and am starting to dabble in the world of Straight Razors. I have started out having a few shaves with a Dovo and Parker Shavette and looking to move onto a straight razor shortly. I was looking at these Gold Dollar Razors on Ebay and stumbled across this thread as well.

I would like to learn how to strop/hone a razor and have bought the Norton Stone Starter Kit from Amazon and have The Poor Man's Strop Kit from Larry @ WhippedDog on the way. People have mentioned that these razors will need to be modified to be able to shave with them. By modification do you mean honing it, or do they require more advanced modification?

If it's just honing they require i would like to pick up a few from Ebay to try to hone and make "shave ready". Given their lost cost, it won't hurt as much if i stuff a few up

Look forward to the responses.

You can learn a lot from these razors , but often they do have issues. Figuring out what the issues are and how you are going to deal with them is valuable experience IMO. I would also recommend getting a shave ready razor and learn to maintain it, including touch ups. That way you are learning honing from both ends.

 

[bluesman 7]

Here is a thread that follows one of these problem razors through a series of fixes;
http://badgerandblade.com/vb/showthread.php/352503-Are-there-razors-that-will-NOT-take-an-edge

 

[Mayweather]

So it seems the Gold Dollar Razors may require a little too much work for me as a beginner. I'd like a cheap razor i can play with as a beginner honer and being new to Straight Razors. Is there a cheap razor like this that will only require honing so i can work on this skill first and try and master it? I'm not interested in other modifications at this stage until i've mastered this concept.

Any help is appreciated.

 

[bluesman 7]

There are lots of cheap razors on the auction sites. The hard part, for a beginner, is that they are mixed in with hundreds of pieces of junk.

Keep your eye on the B/S/T . Straights in the $20-$45 range show up there fairly often

 

[Seraphim]

So it seems the Gold Dollar Razors may require a little too much work for me as a beginner. I'd like a cheap razor i can play with as a beginner honer and being new to Straight Razors. Is there a cheap razor like this that will only require honing so i can work on this skill first and try and master it? I'm not interested in other modifications at this stage until i've mastered this concept.

Any help is appreciated.

Buy a pre-honed, and pre-fixed GD from Buca in the Hobbyist classifieds section. They are like $25, and shave excellently.

 

[Krodor]

Buy a pre-honed, and pre-fixed GD from Buca in the Hobbyist classifieds section. They are like $25, and shave excellently.

+1....yup, that.

 

[pmaster]

I'd say go ahead and get yourself a nice & cheap 4/8 or 5/8 straight on ebay. You might spend a while to set the bevel on it, but you will learn a lot. At the same time you can do some minimal restoration; a few sheets of sand paper and some mag polish will give you amazing results if you take your time. Then you can proudly call it your own work!

 

[Mayweather]

Thanks for the help all,

In the hope of not sounding like a total newbie what is B/S/T? I have a pre-honed from Whipped Dog coming which i aim to keep shave ready via stropping it daily. However, i would like to learn how to make a blunt razor "shave ready". Also i believe the classified's in America are different to Australia but i will take a look at my local ones here.

About 6 months ago i bought two of these: http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/New-Stai...?pt=AU_HairRemoval&hash=item27d6b2853a&_uhb=1

Given how cheap they were i didn't bother even taking them out of the box as ruled them off as pieces of junk after stumbling across this forum. Is it even worth me trying to hone these or should i just throw them out?

 

[Slash McCoy]

Thanks for the help all,

In the hope of not sounding like a total newbie what is B/S/T? I have a pre-honed from Whipped Dog coming which i aim to keep shave ready via stropping it daily. However, i would like to learn how to make a blunt razor "shave ready". Also i believe the classified's in America are different to Australia but i will take a look at my local ones here.

About 6 months ago i bought two of these: http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/New-Stai...?pt=AU_HairRemoval&hash=item27d6b2853a&_uhb=1

Given how cheap they were i didn't bother even taking them out of the box as ruled them off as pieces of junk after stumbling across this forum. Is it even worth me trying to hone these or should i just throw them out?

Looks like the infamius Kreigar K-1. Useless as a razor. I spent a couple of weeks modifying one recently. You will notice that the bevel angle is only about 10-1/2 degrees. I reground it into a 16 degree full wedge, which would have shaved nicely if made from good steel. It didnt, so it wasnt. The scales you will notice are extremely heavy and rigid and poorly wedged. If you call it a cheap low quality knife shaped like a razor, you wont be far wrong. Keep it for opening packages of real razors that arrive in the mail. Dont bother honing and certainly dont try to shave with it.

Not all cheap razors are made from such poor steel. Gold Dollars are absolute crap out of the box as well the should be, at less than three bucks apiece, but surprisingly the steel is good enough that they can be regarded as half finished blanks and made into excellent razors. But I can tell you from actual experience that the Kreigar is garbage. Generally if the description has thexword "knife" in it, or the seller doesnt use common razor lingo or uses it improperly, the product is merely a razor shaped object, not worthy of your consideration at any price. YMMV?

 

[bluesman 7]

B/S/T stands for buy, sell, trade, It's a section about four down from this one.
Link;
http://badgerandblade.com/vb/forumdisplay.php/11-Shaving-Mall-Buy-Sell-Trade