Lllllllllllllllllllllet's get ready to rumbllllllle!
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Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G935A using Tapatalk
The World Shave Off Showdown
- Thread starter User 306
- Start date
Who’s in the corners tmw night?
- Thread starter
- #103
Hi Mark
Today’s Shave Off is the Vintage NOS Merkur Progress SolingenAdjustable that’s never been used vs my mint or NIB Apollo Ben Hur Adjustable.
Both of these razors look like they may have some common history and I’m hoping to get some historical comments from some of the members on the stories behind these 2 beautiful razors.
Personally I’m very excited to take these 2 for a spin. So stay tuned my friend!
Too beautiful razors. Can't wait to see the write up and pictures
- Thread starter
- #106
NOTE: Next Shave Off in the Books!
Category: Adjustable razors
Vintage Apollo Ben Hur vs Vintage Merkur Progress Solingen
Ok so here we are with 2 very hard to find razors and some may even call the Ben Hur rare. Both these razor are from my personal collection and they both were made in Germany and I think that there was a connection somewhere along the line with the two companies but I may be completely off base and wrong with that statement and I think we need some members who really know their history on these 2 razors like @Jake for example to maybe chime in and bring us up to speed on these beautiful razors.
I know the Merkur was never used and a NIB razor as you can see from the photos. The Apollo Ben Hur I'm not 100% sure but it shows no sign of wear whatsoever and photos do not do these razors justice especially my photos LOL
So as far as I'm concerned these two are on their maiden voyage and with the Progress for sure it is no longer a NIB and I'm kind of celebrating because for over a year I have looked at this razor wanting to try it out. Same goes with the Apollo Ben Hur but I did have a Apollo Mikron for a while that was in what I'd call very good conditon but it was not as good as the Ben Hur so I used it a couple of times and had someone ask me if I wanted to do a trade and I did.
These two being adjustable razors I had to put them in the Shave Off to not only let them represent their heritage but also not to many threads on how they shave have been written lately and I thought some members would enjoy hearing my experiences shaving with them. So hopefully some of you will enjoy reading about this shave off as much as I enjoyed shaving with these two beauties!
So gear used:
Declaration Grooming Gratiot League Square
Brush - Elite Stone Manchurian
Bowl - Shave Nation
Blades - Timor
Aftershave balm - AOS unscented
Cologne - 4711
So on to the Shave:
1st Pass - WTG - So from the photos you can tell what razors I used in what quadrant of my face and neck. So I started with the Ben Hur loaded with the Timor blade. Both razor and blade were completely new to me and I didn't know what to expect but being confident in my SSSST I started on setting #7 which is just one short of the maximum #8 setting and WOW! First couple of strokes and I'm like this thing is a little bit of a beast on setting #7 at least. Lots of blade feel and my beard was in bad need of a shave and this thing just mowed through it like nothing! It had a strange feel to it as far as angle and I found myself adjusting throughout the first pass until I found the sweet spot which it does seem to have but it's kind of a small window. So finished the first pass on my right side and picked up Progress and being a brass razor it was considerably heavier than the Ben Hur which I've been told is made of Pot metal with the gold finish on it which I've also been told can come off easily and this is not a razor that can be replated according to Chris at razorplate because of the Pot metal. The Progress felt more natural to me as I had a Merkur Mergress for a couple of years and this seemed similar but even smoother and I had a really enjoyable first pass on my difficult cowlick. So with the Progress still in hand I headed on over to my left side and began my downward journey using my SSSST and what a nice smooth yet efficient pass it was. I really like this razor at this point and I find it very easy to shave with. Nice comfortable balance point to it. BTW I set this on setting 5 which seemed like a perfect setting for me on this pass so I left it there. So grabbed the Apollo and started my north to south pass on my neck and again this razor has some blade feel to it. I mean not like a 2011 R41 but it's definitely there! I decided as long as the WTG pass was complete I was going to bring the setting down to a 5 to see how different it felt on the next pass.
So when I rinsed I did a quick hand feel and I was wow if I were just heading out to work I'd just stop right here other than a couple of areas I would have just touched up.
2nd Pass - XTG ear to nose on my face and ATG on my neck. So again I had the Ben Hur in hand and like I mentioned I had set it down to #5 setting for this pass and I noticed right away the blade feel was also knocked down by a decent amount. Going ear to nose I'd have to call this razor " Efficient and borderline Very Efficient" on the higher setting. Never shaved with a Timor blade and I will have to put these two in another more familiar razor to really evaluate it compared to my beloved Kai's and Polsilver blades to see where the Timor stands. Oh and a shout out to James aka @loot for sending me the Timor blades to try. So the Apollo really nailed this pass as I was starting to dial in the angle and the feel for it as like I mentioned it's lighter than the Progress and much lighter than most of my razors in my den. Also turning the setting down to #5 seemed to tame it around my lips and mouth as I felt a little less confident in my last pass in that area because of the blade feel it had on #7. So nice nice pass! Over to the other side and to the Progress. Again it felt so natural to me and shaving with is basically a breeze even around my lips and mouth. Also on this pass the audible feedback which was pretty quiet on the first pass was like elevator music on this pass unlike the hard Rock audible concert the Ben Hur gave me on the 1st pass. So two good passes by both razors but the way they achieved the nice pass was completely different in every way. So we are going ATG for the neck areas and I picked up the Progress first after adding a little more lather as I felt my lather was drying out a bit while I shaved on my face. BTW about the DG soap as this seems like a good time to mention this is while being a top tier soap performance wise and in my personal top 6 Shave soaps. The only thing with this brand for me is although the performance is like between an 8 1/2 - 9 out of 10 the scents in most cases are like a 6 to 7 out of 10 and in some cases lower and it kind of takes away a bit from the entire shave experience but that's just me. Ok back to the shave! So again taking the Progress going ATG this baby is just a smooth operator. Efficient enough but if I had to put it in a category like I do with the 3 piece razors which will be coming up soon I'd have to said it's moderately efficient to efficient depending on the settings and a bit of a contrast to the Ben Hur kind of represents it's name really well! So the ATG pass was very nice and smooth with no chatter or skipping which also held true for the Ben Hur as it just cleaned up my neck growth on the opposite side of my neck also going ATG.
So at the end of these 2 passes you ask which razor is the winner? Well doing a face feel and a cotton test I at this moment can't honestly say as I was a strong Level 1 BBS on my neck and a Level 2 in some areas of my face with some areas being a level 1. So I'm going to see how my face feels when I wake up in the morning and see if there was a clear winner here.
Final thoughts.
Both these razors are either rare or at least hard to find. Especially in the conditon that these two are in but I will say I would never ever use the Apollo as a daily shaver as I know the finish on it would probably deteriorate relatively quickly so if this razor moves on in the competition so be it but after this it goes back in my display case and won't be taken out unless I really feel the need to have a shave with it. I kind of feel the same way about the vintage Progress but it's not quite as rare or hard to find but since this on was a NIB I think after cleaning and drying it the razor looks just like I took it out of the box earlier to shave with so I'll probably put this back in the display case as well as I don't look at either one as a razor that I would put in my rotation and if I really felt the need to have one I'd find a user grade that I wouldn't care about so much.
Great shaves my friends!
Category: Adjustable razors
Vintage Apollo Ben Hur vs Vintage Merkur Progress Solingen
Ok so here we are with 2 very hard to find razors and some may even call the Ben Hur rare. Both these razor are from my personal collection and they both were made in Germany and I think that there was a connection somewhere along the line with the two companies but I may be completely off base and wrong with that statement and I think we need some members who really know their history on these 2 razors like @Jake for example to maybe chime in and bring us up to speed on these beautiful razors.
I know the Merkur was never used and a NIB razor as you can see from the photos. The Apollo Ben Hur I'm not 100% sure but it shows no sign of wear whatsoever and photos do not do these razors justice especially my photos LOL
So as far as I'm concerned these two are on their maiden voyage and with the Progress for sure it is no longer a NIB and I'm kind of celebrating because for over a year I have looked at this razor wanting to try it out. Same goes with the Apollo Ben Hur but I did have a Apollo Mikron for a while that was in what I'd call very good conditon but it was not as good as the Ben Hur so I used it a couple of times and had someone ask me if I wanted to do a trade and I did.
These two being adjustable razors I had to put them in the Shave Off to not only let them represent their heritage but also not to many threads on how they shave have been written lately and I thought some members would enjoy hearing my experiences shaving with them. So hopefully some of you will enjoy reading about this shave off as much as I enjoyed shaving with these two beauties!
So gear used:
Declaration Grooming Gratiot League Square
Brush - Elite Stone Manchurian
Bowl - Shave Nation
Blades - Timor
Aftershave balm - AOS unscented
Cologne - 4711
So on to the Shave:
1st Pass - WTG - So from the photos you can tell what razors I used in what quadrant of my face and neck. So I started with the Ben Hur loaded with the Timor blade. Both razor and blade were completely new to me and I didn't know what to expect but being confident in my SSSST I started on setting #7 which is just one short of the maximum #8 setting and WOW! First couple of strokes and I'm like this thing is a little bit of a beast on setting #7 at least. Lots of blade feel and my beard was in bad need of a shave and this thing just mowed through it like nothing! It had a strange feel to it as far as angle and I found myself adjusting throughout the first pass until I found the sweet spot which it does seem to have but it's kind of a small window. So finished the first pass on my right side and picked up Progress and being a brass razor it was considerably heavier than the Ben Hur which I've been told is made of Pot metal with the gold finish on it which I've also been told can come off easily and this is not a razor that can be replated according to Chris at razorplate because of the Pot metal. The Progress felt more natural to me as I had a Merkur Mergress for a couple of years and this seemed similar but even smoother and I had a really enjoyable first pass on my difficult cowlick. So with the Progress still in hand I headed on over to my left side and began my downward journey using my SSSST and what a nice smooth yet efficient pass it was. I really like this razor at this point and I find it very easy to shave with. Nice comfortable balance point to it. BTW I set this on setting 5 which seemed like a perfect setting for me on this pass so I left it there. So grabbed the Apollo and started my north to south pass on my neck and again this razor has some blade feel to it. I mean not like a 2011 R41 but it's definitely there! I decided as long as the WTG pass was complete I was going to bring the setting down to a 5 to see how different it felt on the next pass.
So when I rinsed I did a quick hand feel and I was wow if I were just heading out to work I'd just stop right here other than a couple of areas I would have just touched up.
2nd Pass - XTG ear to nose on my face and ATG on my neck. So again I had the Ben Hur in hand and like I mentioned I had set it down to #5 setting for this pass and I noticed right away the blade feel was also knocked down by a decent amount. Going ear to nose I'd have to call this razor " Efficient and borderline Very Efficient" on the higher setting. Never shaved with a Timor blade and I will have to put these two in another more familiar razor to really evaluate it compared to my beloved Kai's and Polsilver blades to see where the Timor stands. Oh and a shout out to James aka @loot for sending me the Timor blades to try. So the Apollo really nailed this pass as I was starting to dial in the angle and the feel for it as like I mentioned it's lighter than the Progress and much lighter than most of my razors in my den. Also turning the setting down to #5 seemed to tame it around my lips and mouth as I felt a little less confident in my last pass in that area because of the blade feel it had on #7. So nice nice pass! Over to the other side and to the Progress. Again it felt so natural to me and shaving with is basically a breeze even around my lips and mouth. Also on this pass the audible feedback which was pretty quiet on the first pass was like elevator music on this pass unlike the hard Rock audible concert the Ben Hur gave me on the 1st pass. So two good passes by both razors but the way they achieved the nice pass was completely different in every way. So we are going ATG for the neck areas and I picked up the Progress first after adding a little more lather as I felt my lather was drying out a bit while I shaved on my face. BTW about the DG soap as this seems like a good time to mention this is while being a top tier soap performance wise and in my personal top 6 Shave soaps. The only thing with this brand for me is although the performance is like between an 8 1/2 - 9 out of 10 the scents in most cases are like a 6 to 7 out of 10 and in some cases lower and it kind of takes away a bit from the entire shave experience but that's just me. Ok back to the shave! So again taking the Progress going ATG this baby is just a smooth operator. Efficient enough but if I had to put it in a category like I do with the 3 piece razors which will be coming up soon I'd have to said it's moderately efficient to efficient depending on the settings and a bit of a contrast to the Ben Hur kind of represents it's name really well! So the ATG pass was very nice and smooth with no chatter or skipping which also held true for the Ben Hur as it just cleaned up my neck growth on the opposite side of my neck also going ATG.
So at the end of these 2 passes you ask which razor is the winner? Well doing a face feel and a cotton test I at this moment can't honestly say as I was a strong Level 1 BBS on my neck and a Level 2 in some areas of my face with some areas being a level 1. So I'm going to see how my face feels when I wake up in the morning and see if there was a clear winner here.
Final thoughts.
Both these razors are either rare or at least hard to find. Especially in the conditon that these two are in but I will say I would never ever use the Apollo as a daily shaver as I know the finish on it would probably deteriorate relatively quickly so if this razor moves on in the competition so be it but after this it goes back in my display case and won't be taken out unless I really feel the need to have a shave with it. I kind of feel the same way about the vintage Progress but it's not quite as rare or hard to find but since this on was a NIB I think after cleaning and drying it the razor looks just like I took it out of the box earlier to shave with so I'll probably put this back in the display case as well as I don't look at either one as a razor that I would put in my rotation and if I really felt the need to have one I'd find a user grade that I wouldn't care about so much.
Great shaves my friends!
Very good shave off, I think the winner will be Ben hur but I guess we will see.
Happy shaves
SMURF
Happy shaves
SMURF
Wow 2 beautiful looking razors that appear to be very similar in looks, but different as night and day in feel. Great review I look forward to hearing which gave a longer lasting shave. My vote is the Progress
Those are sharp razors! Very shiny and nice.
- Thread starter
- #110
Thank you my friend and you were correct with your pick of the winner.
Mark they do have a somewhat similar appearance but that’s where it ends. It’s been about 10hrs since the shave and the areas where I used the Ben Hur are still BBS while I’m feeling stubble where I shaved with Progress so the Ben Hur is the winner here. I don’t know why but I kept thinking that the Ben Hur although an Adjustable might shave like the Paradigm Ti 1 as you’ve disscribed to me. The Ben Hur is very light weight but it’s quite efficient with some blade feel and I didn’t have it on the highest setting. Also has a unique face feel to it. Complete opposite of what I was expecting pre shave.
Thank you. Yes they are and both very good shavers.
Beautiful razors and thanks for posting the photos.
NOTE: Next Shave Off in the Books!
Category: Adjustable razors
Vintage Apollo Ben Hur vs Vintage Merkur Progress Solingen
Ok so here we are with 2 very hard to find razors and some may even call the Ben Hur rare. Both these razor are from my personal collection and they both were made in Germany and I think that there was a connection somewhere along the line with the two companies but I may be completely off base and wrong with that statement and I think we need some members who really know their history on these 2 razors like @Jake for example to maybe chime in and bring us up to speed on these beautiful razors.
I know the Merkur was never used and a NIB razor as you can see from the photos. The Apollo Ben Hur I'm not 100% sure but it shows no sign of wear whatsoever and photos do not do these razors justice especially my photos LOL
So as far as I'm concerned these two are on their maiden voyage and with the Progress for sure it is no longer a NIB and I'm kind of celebrating because for over a year I have looked at this razor wanting to try it out. Same goes with the Apollo Ben Hur but I did have a Apollo Mikron for a while that was in what I'd call very good conditon but it was not as good as the Ben Hur so I used it a couple of times and had someone ask me if I wanted to do a trade and I did.
These two being adjustable razors I had to put them in the Shave Off to not only let them represent their heritage but also not to many threads on how they shave have been written lately and I thought some members would enjoy hearing my experiences shaving with them. So hopefully some of you will enjoy reading about this shave off as much as I enjoyed shaving with these two beauties!
So gear used:
Declaration Grooming Gratiot League Square
Brush - Elite Stone Manchurian
Bowl - Shave Nation
Blades - Timor
Aftershave balm - AOS unscented
Cologne - 4711
So on to the Shave:
1st Pass - WTG - So from the photos you can tell what razors I used in what quadrant of my face and neck. So I started with the Ben Hur loaded with the Timor blade. Both razor and blade were completely new to me and I didn't know what to expect but being confident in my SSSST I started on setting #7 which is just one short of the maximum #8 setting and WOW! First couple of strokes and I'm like this thing is a little bit of a beast on setting #7 at least. Lots of blade feel and my beard was in bad need of a shave and this thing just mowed through it like nothing! It had a strange feel to it as far as angle and I found myself adjusting throughout the first pass until I found the sweet spot which it does seem to have but it's kind of a small window. So finished the first pass on my right side and picked up Progress and being a brass razor it was considerably heavier than the Ben Hur which I've been told is made of Pot metal with the gold finish on it which I've also been told can come off easily and this is not a razor that can be replated according to Chris at razorplate because of the Pot metal. The Progress felt more natural to me as I had a Merkur Mergress for a couple of years and this seemed similar but even smoother and I had a really enjoyable first pass on my difficult cowlick. So with the Progress still in hand I headed on over to my left side and began my downward journey using my SSSST and what a nice smooth yet efficient pass it was. I really like this razor at this point and I find it very easy to shave with. Nice comfortable balance point to it. BTW I set this on setting 5 which seemed like a perfect setting for me on this pass so I left it there. So grabbed the Apollo and started my north to south pass on my neck and again this razor has some blade feel to it. I mean not like a 2011 R41 but it's definitely there! I decided as long as the WTG pass was complete I was going to bring the setting down to a 5 to see how different it felt on the next pass.
So when I rinsed I did a quick hand feel and I was wow if I were just heading out to work I'd just stop right here other than a couple of areas I would have just touched up.
2nd Pass - XTG ear to nose on my face and ATG on my neck. So again I had the Ben Hur in hand and like I mentioned I had set it down to #5 setting for this pass and I noticed right away the blade feel was also knocked down by a decent amount. Going ear to nose I'd have to call this razor " Efficient and borderline Very Efficient" on the higher setting. Never shaved with a Timor blade and I will have to put these two in another more familiar razor to really evaluate it compared to my beloved Kai's and Polsilver blades to see where the Timor stands. Oh and a shout out to James aka @loot for sending me the Timor blades to try. So the Apollo really nailed this pass as I was starting to dial in the angle and the feel for it as like I mentioned it's lighter than the Progress and much lighter than most of my razors in my den. Also turning the setting down to #5 seemed to tame it around my lips and mouth as I felt a little less confident in my last pass in that area because of the blade feel it had on #7. So nice nice pass! Over to the other side and to the Progress. Again it felt so natural to me and shaving with is basically a breeze even around my lips and mouth. Also on this pass the audible feedback which was pretty quiet on the first pass was like elevator music on this pass unlike the hard Rock audible concert the Ben Hur gave me on the 1st pass. So two good passes by both razors but the way they achieved the nice pass was completely different in every way. So we are going ATG for the neck areas and I picked up the Progress first after adding a little more lather as I felt my lather was drying out a bit while I shaved on my face. BTW about the DG soap as this seems like a good time to mention this is while being a top tier soap performance wise and in my personal top 6 Shave soaps. The only thing with this brand for me is although the performance is like between an 8 1/2 - 9 out of 10 the scents in most cases are like a 6 to 7 out of 10 and in some cases lower and it kind of takes away a bit from the entire shave experience but that's just me. Ok back to the shave! So again taking the Progress going ATG this baby is just a smooth operator. Efficient enough but if I had to put it in a category like I do with the 3 piece razors which will be coming up soon I'd have to said it's moderately efficient to efficient depending on the settings and a bit of a contrast to the Ben Hur kind of represents it's name really well! So the ATG pass was very nice and smooth with no chatter or skipping which also held true for the Ben Hur as it just cleaned up my neck growth on the opposite side of my neck also going ATG.
So at the end of these 2 passes you ask which razor is the winner? Well doing a face feel and a cotton test I at this moment can't honestly say as I was a strong Level 1 BBS on my neck and a Level 2 in some areas of my face with some areas being a level 1. So I'm going to see how my face feels when I wake up in the morning and see if there was a clear winner here.
Final thoughts.
Both these razors are either rare or at least hard to find. Especially in the conditon that these two are in but I will say I would never ever use the Apollo as a daily shaver as I know the finish on it would probably deteriorate relatively quickly so if this razor moves on in the competition so be it but after this it goes back in my display case and won't be taken out unless I really feel the need to have a shave with it. I kind of feel the same way about the vintage Progress but it's not quite as rare or hard to find but since this on was a NIB I think after cleaning and drying it the razor looks just like I took it out of the box earlier to shave with so I'll probably put this back in the display case as well as I don't look at either one as a razor that I would put in my rotation and if I really felt the need to have one I'd find a user grade that I wouldn't care about so much.
Great shaves my friends!
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Good stuff amigo. Real good.....
Great job Frank--- even though I'm not into vintage I am enjoying this---
Excellent review and your photos are great too. I'm enjoying this.
Frank---Just curious--- I know y o u mentioned a surprise contender in the aggressive department and since I shaved today with my R41 is that razor included in the shave-off because with all the great new razors out I feel the R41 gets overshadowed sometimes.
Thank you my friend @beisler We are getting towards the end of the Adjustable razors and I’ll be moving on to the 3 piece razors soon. The mildly efficient category should go fairly fast as I can do a shave either every day or maybe every day and a half so it should speed things up a bit.
DID SOMEBODY SAY 3 PIECE RAZORS??
Excellent review, Mr. Dragon. Very handsome razors. The photos were great.
Frankie has my 2011 R41 in his den. It will represent!
I gotta say, the 3 piece categories will be fun to watch. Frankie has some great gear to evaluate.
