Watch out on eBay...

[Chan Eil Whiskers]

You really need to keep your eyes open.
Someone is selling two Natural Belgian Coticules on Ebay UK.
No pictures of the actual stones, just a box and something inside plastic within the box.
Auction is about to end an here is one of the pictures.

View attachment 984994

Last time I checked, Aluminium Oxide is used for synthetic stones.

What a vendor: Amazingly deceptive and/or ignorant beyond belief.

 

[steveclarkus]

What a vendor: Amazingly deceptive and/or ignorant beyond belief.

Ignorance is bliss - until you experience the outcome.

 

[Joshua223]

Last time I checked, Aluminium Oxide is used for synthetic stones.

It is. He was saying the stones were synthetic, but being sold as natural razor hones.

 

[Chan Eil Whiskers]

Gotta have it...

 

[Luecke2326]

(from 2018)

Stolen straight razor collection from Germany (click to read happy ending)

A distressed shaver from Germany has just posted the following message.
If you notice anything unusual showing up on ebay/elsewhere, please contact the guy.

----

Hello anyone. Long time (years) gone since my last visit.
Sadly it's a bad reason to write a new thread.

I came back to my home in Germany from a 3 weeks holyday trip in Portugal and found that someone has visited my house through a smashed window.
My complete antique/vintage Straight Razor collection is stolen. 150 of the finest and nicest cut throats collected and restaurated and sharpended since 20 years in very very good condition!
Many W&B, 2 Sahara Camel Rider, 1 Globemen, Friodur, Filarmonica, Pumas, Lou Per, some old french Choper, some svedish Heljestrand, Tennis, Bockla, Böker, Zwilling, Wacker, many Ern and and and... All gone :-(((
Some of the with Ivory scales, Tortoise, Narwal, Walrus...
I fear the collection is minimum 20k Euro worth. Actually I think some more for a collector.

If anyone may find in ebay or other market places PLEASE gimme ma a Hint to:

uburoy at genial.ms subject "Stolen Razor"

I have good fotos from all of them so I can absolutely decide if its one of mine or not. Also I have used the Razors for many years in dayli shave and know anything about them.

PLEASE HELP and Share wherever you can.

Thanks a lot, friends.

Wow, I remember reading that thread on B&B, good for him! Too bad he's missing over 100 of them though....

 

[Slash McCoy]

You really need to keep your eyes open.
Someone is selling two Natural Belgian Coticules on Ebay UK.
No pictures of the actual stones, just a box and something inside plastic within the box.
Auction is about to end an here is one of the pictures.

View attachment 984994

Last time I checked, Aluminium Oxide is used for synthetic stones.

So... you mean, Norton doesn't actually make coticules any more? NOW you tell me!!!

 

[Slash McCoy]

Gotta have it...

Well, the coffin and scales are worth $10 or a bit more, I would say.

 

[jmturley]

Gotta have it...

Is "Double Temple" referring to those two notches in the blade? lol

 

[Joshua223]

Is "Double Temple" referring to those two notches in the blade? lol

Told seller a large chip was NOT a notch in the edge. It was a chip.
Response was basically:
"Well, it looks original to me. There are no cracks and it is very smooth. I'll mention it in the listing."

 

[naughtilus]

Those are barber notches. Looks NOS to me.

 

[Chan Eil Whiskers]

Those are barber notches. Looks NOS to me.

Vendor should be informed. He can then up the price.

 

[SliceOfLife]

Came across this guy. He's cheap, but still a word of caution. This is what a razor someone destroyed the temper of on a buffer looks like. Most guys will clean it up afterwards so it's much harder to detect, but here's a very obvious one.
You can see the buffer marks, but also notice the finning at the bevel. That bevel is about to break off and almost certainly the steel behind it has lost its temper too.

 

[Chan Eil Whiskers]

Came across this guy. He's cheap, but still a word of caution. This is what a razor someone destroyed the temper of on a buffer looks like. Most guys will clean it up afterwards so it's much harder to detect, but here's a very obvious one.
You can see the buffer marks, but also notice the finning at the bevel. That bevel is about to break off and almost certainly the steel behind it has lost its temper too.

What is finning at the bevel. I'm missing the obvious probably. Still learning.

 

[SliceOfLife]

The edge is thinned and steel softened (from buffing and overheating the blade while buffing) to the point that it starts to deform plastically (Plastic deformation means it holds the position it moves to vs elastic meaning it springs back to its original position). You can tell from the light reflection in the picture that the bevel is bent towards the camera like a fin sticking off the blade... meaning it's "finned". This is a sure indication that the steel is too soft (hard steel won't deform plastically to that extent, that's why smiths can use a snap test to determine how hard a steel is).

here's a closeup of the other side where you can see where the edge bends away from the camera.

 

[Chan Eil Whiskers]

The edge is thinned and steel softened (from buffing and overheating the blade while buffing) to the point that it starts to deform plastically (Plastic deformation means it holds the position it moves to vs elastic meaning it springs back to its original position). You can tell from the light reflection in the picture that the bevel is bent towards the camera like a fin sticking off the blade... meaning it's "finned". This is a sure indication that the steel is too soft (hard steel won't deform plastically to that extent, that's why smiths can use a snap test to determine how hard a steel is).

here's a closeup of the other side where you can see where the edge bends away from the camera.

Thanks. The second picture really helped. Not sure I'd notice anything in the first photo.

The explanation makes perfect sense.

Happy shaves,

Jim

 

[SliceOfLife]

VINTAGE STRAIGHT EDGE RAZORS LOT FOR PARTS | eBay


One of the lots I bought last weekend.

I saw it. Had a nice FW Engles in it and 3 more blades. Looked good shape from what the seller showed. odd cropping, but hey he's got 100% feedback... probably shooting straight... right? $10 a razor, and the Engles is worth $20-30 at least...

They get here and two of the blades have some minor microchips... no big deal... expected stuff like that... totally salvagable. The third has the toe honed so far back it's not worth fixing... but hey... a lot of razors like that and could be an honest mistake. Then the Engles... and I know why the seller cropped his pictures exactly where he did. A crack moving halfway up the blade a few mm in from where he cropped the pictures.

I message the seller and get the usual... "They're As-Is". Explain to him that doesn't mean you can deliberately obscure damage and wash your hands of it. He agrees to a 25% refund ($9.25)... basically because the alternative is him paying $8 on return shipping and giving me a refund for item damaged/not as described. I wind up paying $13 for razors I was figuring were worth about $10 each given the restoration they require, but hey it's better than dealing with the hassle of a return. But that's the kind of stuff some eBayer's try to get away with... and this is a STORE with 100% feedback... not some schmuck selling some junk he found.

Not sure why link says “for parts” listing did not.

 

[Chan Eil Whiskers]

VINTAGE STRAIGHT EDGE RAZORS LOT FOR PARTS | eBay


One of the lots I bought last weekend.

I saw it. Had a nice FW Engles in it and 3 more blades. Looked good shape from what the seller showed. odd cropping, but hey he's got 100% feedback... probably shooting straight... right? $10 a razor, and the Engles is worth $20-30 at least...

They get here and two of the blades have some minor microchips... no big deal... expected stuff like that... totally salvagable. The third has the toe honed so far back it's not worth fixing... but hey... a lot of razors like that and could be an honest mistake. Then the Engles... and I know why the seller cropped his pictures exactly where he did. A crack moving halfway up the blade a few mm in from where he cropped the pictures.

I message the seller and get the usual... "They're As-Is". Explain to him that doesn't mean you can deliberately obscure damage and wash your hands of it. He agrees to a 25% refund ($9.25)... basically because the alternative is him paying $8 on return shipping and giving me a refund for item damaged/not as described. I wind up paying $13 for razors I was figuring were worth about $10 each given the restoration they require, but hey it's better than dealing with the hassle of a return. But that's the kind of stuff some eBayer's try to get away with... and this is a STORE with 100% feedback... not some schmuck selling some junk he found.

I'd make sure the 100% went bye bye.

Deliberately cropping the cracked blade in order to sell a blade with zero value? That's just plain dishonest and wrong! Well, not just, it's also deliberately and willfully deceptive. Intent to deceive. Fraudulent.

 

[Suhrim21]

I know this is mainly for straights but just ran across these brushes. Listed on eBay as silvertip badger. Second pic shows it's pure badger. In the description I love that. She says I believe these are silvertip but I'm no expert.

New in Box Badger Silvertip Shaving Brush EShave Inc Made in Germany Blaireau | eBay

 

[SliceOfLife]

Never trust brush descriptions... especially on eBay... damn near the MAJORITY of banded boar is sold as badger.... just because no one knows the difference unless it is labeled or they shave with both. Hell, my first "Badger" brush when I started wetshaving was a banded boar... and I didn't know it until I bought a second one and saw the hair was completely different. I had posts 11 years ago comparing my "Badger" brush to the Van Der Hagen boar it had replaced that I'm sure I'd get a kick out of laughing at if I were to come across them today. I mean, how was I to know that some boar brushes were dyed specifically to look like a type of badger hair?


Since you brought up brushes... remember I was on my phone...

Authentic Men's Vintage 100% Badger Hair Shaving Brush made in U.S.A. | eBay

Saw this guy... thought it looked like a nice, unused black badger Everready. Now most badger everready brushes are crazy floppy, but black badger almost can't be floppy, so I wanted to try it... and it was worth a few bucks to do so.

It gets here and there's some specs of black paint on the handle... How this didn't register with me I'll never know... But I soak it and start washing it out by palm lathering a bar of soap.

And my hand turns black... little black flecks of glitter-like flakes... EVERYWHERE. It's coming off the knot. I still haven't finished... but underneath the paint is a blond boar knot someone either spray-painted black or used to paint a house black. I suspect the former, as the inner hairs weren't coated.

Never seen anything like it... and I've bought dozens of vintage brushes (I used to restore and reknot them as a hobby back in the days when reknotting and TGN were synonyms, and there weren't a thousand different companies selling chinese brushes for pennies on the dollar).

Now I can't believe this one was the sellers fault, so I got a laugh out of it and will be trying to get the rest of the paint out and use it for kicks... but still...

 

[naughtilus]

Never trust brush descriptions... especially on eBay... damn near the MAJORITY of banded boar is sold as badger.... just because no one knows the difference unless it is labeled or they shave with both. Hell, my first "Badger" brush when I started wetshaving was a banded boar... and I didn't know it until I bought a second one and saw the hair was completely different. I had posts 11 years ago comparing my "Badger" brush to the Van Der Hagen boar it had replaced that I'm sure I'd get a kick out of laughing at if I were to come across them today. I mean, how was I to know that some boar brushes were dyed specifically to look like a type of badger hair?


Since you brought up brushes... remember I was on my phone...

Authentic Men's Vintage 100% Badger Hair Shaving Brush made in U.S.A. | eBay

Saw this guy... thought it looked like a nice, unused black badger Everready. Now most badger everready brushes are crazy floppy, but black badger almost can't be floppy, so I wanted to try it... and it was worth a few bucks to do so.

It gets here and there's some specs of black paint on the handle... How this didn't register with me I'll never know... But I soak it and start washing it out by palm lathering a bar of soap.

And my hand turns black... little black flecks of glitter-like flakes... EVERYWHERE. It's coming off the knot. I still haven't finished... but underneath the paint is a banded boar knot someone either spraypainted black or used to paint a house black.

Never seen anything like it... and I've bought dozens of vintage brushes (I used to restore and reknot them as a hobby back in the days when reknotting and TGN were synonyms, and there weren't a thousand different companies selling chinese brushes for pennies on the dollar).

Very true. Now they do a bait and switch on badgers with synthetics. The more 'honest' ones will ship a smaller than advertised badger knot.

At least one is careful on ebay. Most scams these days are via Amazon simply because people have their guards down.