Good vintages razors are miles better than any GB, as simple as that.
What's Wrong with Gold Dollar?
- Thread starter Raissermesser
- Start date
I have to mention the Gold dollar 1996. For 10$ on Amazon. Scales are extremely simple, but still better than my Puma (no kidding) and balanced to my linking! If you ask me, they are the ultimate razor to test honing methods. No modification needed, they are actually easy to hone. Just some work on setting that bevel, but nothing special. I have two and they were totally shave ready, very sharp (I wonder how they get them so sharp with wonky bevels). One I used for several shaves without sharpening, the other I experimented with. I might get more to help me get a feel of different finishers. Not only is there nothing wrong with Gold Dollar they are great for hobby honers or people that can take it even further and really mod them into something else. And they shave well enough for my technique to be the limiting factor.
One bevel set and your good. I have dabbled with many of them. I have NEVER broken a pair of scales on any of mine and i use them quite frequently. They shave as well as they're honed. Like any other. ZY razors are shoulderless if anybody is squeamish about the heavy heel. And made by the same factory although they may be reground somewhere else. They're cheap and shave great imo. Comparing them in fit and finish to a $150+ razor when they cost like 5 or 6 bucks is not a fair comparison. Lol.
But you can find vintages that were the equivalent of $150 razors back in the day for <$20 with shipping now, so I just can’t see the point of a GD other than being able to buy 4 and put a different finish on each one, but even then my 4 back in 2012 weren’t consistent enough between them to get an apples to apples comparison IME.
Get a Genco, Robeson, anything from Little Valley... better shave with no fiddling to get setup, a sharper edge straight off the stones, and the edge will run 2-3x as long. Maybe the GDs have improved in 7yrs but why gamble with $10 when you can make a sure investment for $20? Not to mention avoiding promoting whatever questionable business practices are behind that <$10 price tag... obviously YMMV and do whatever you want with your money.
Get a Genco, Robeson, anything from Little Valley... better shave with no fiddling to get setup, a sharper edge straight off the stones, and the edge will run 2-3x as long. Maybe the GDs have improved in 7yrs but why gamble with $10 when you can make a sure investment for $20? Not to mention avoiding promoting whatever questionable business practices are behind that <$10 price tag... obviously YMMV and do whatever you want with your money.
Slash McCoy
I freehand dog rockets
I think you miss the point. Part of the reason we mess about with Gold Dollars is just because we can. And because people (used to) insist that those razors just can't shave. If Dovo Bests were made in China and sold for less than four bucks, we would probably be modding them. Certainly a good $20 vintage is a lot easier to set up for shaving. No argument from me on that. Sure, it has a lot more class than a GD. And yeah, buying a GD enables exploitive factory bosses to abuse more workers. Of course if those poor factory slugs had no job at all, I think maybe they would miss the good old days of getting paid and stuff. Unfair competition? Well, you got me there. But nobody in this country is eager to fill that market niche. Not everyone is gonna like Gold Dollars, and it is cool if you don't, whether for reasons real or imaginary. I like them, for what I use them for. To me they are just raw material and a challenge. To some, they are the cheapest possible alternative to throwaway shaving. To some, they are a fun thing to hack into something that is actually usable. To some they are an obsession. A siren song. The flame of the candle. The pearl of (not so) great price. Too bad you didn't get in on the passaround. You would have seen just how extreme you can go in "fixing" a GD66 and how stunningly effective a less than $4 razor can be. Good stuff, those GDs. In their niche, they are as good as it gets.
Vintages are fine as long as they're in good shape. Lots of new guys don't know what that is. Some of them are toast, some were free-handed like a knife spine off the hone. The razors that took me the longest were vintages, not gds. Getting 4 brand new beefy razors for $25 or less is a great way to start imo. Or get the zys for a few bucks more. Now it comes down to preference of course. But utility wise gds can be made to shave as well as any other imo.
If you want a vintage and don't feel you know enough to judge, it's easy to ask before you buy.
For sure. And heavy grinds for beginners are a crap shoot. Many of these were honedspine off the stone like a knife. A picture won't reveal that.
Close ups reveal metal scaring from too coarse of a stone. Uneven blades are easily spotted.
I’ve found most of mine from reputable sellers and estate sales.
I’ve never gotten a vintage that was junk from day one. Buying requires keen eye skills and not impulsivity.
I know it’s commonly said that eBay is a crap shoot, but it has not been my experience from day one .
- Thread starter
- #30
Have looked at vintage razors on EBay, and have seen those that look like they were sharpened like a knife. Have seen the scratches that look like someone went no higher than a coarse stone. Have seen examples of badly worn blades Have seen chips in the edge. Can't usually see if the blade is warped slightly, unless someone took a photo of the blade spine. I'm not terribly scared about buying a vintage blade. Can't really say I have an issue with them.
What I do have is vast quantities of ignorance. I'm pretty sure I can hone a razor, but until I do, that's no more than speculation. If I get a nice vintage, it will have to be honed, which means sending it off or attempting myself. This gets me back to the Gold Dollars, and looking at the blade more than the scales. If I have to hone a blade, then why not something I don't really care about? OTOH, it sounds like GD will need lots of honing and maybe spine work, which means I wait until I have the hones or flat granite tile and lots and lots of sandpaper.
Lots of good info here, and I thank everyone for their comments.
What I do have is vast quantities of ignorance. I'm pretty sure I can hone a razor, but until I do, that's no more than speculation. If I get a nice vintage, it will have to be honed, which means sending it off or attempting myself. This gets me back to the Gold Dollars, and looking at the blade more than the scales. If I have to hone a blade, then why not something I don't really care about? OTOH, it sounds like GD will need lots of honing and maybe spine work, which means I wait until I have the hones or flat granite tile and lots and lots of sandpaper.
Lots of good info here, and I thank everyone for their comments.
Slash McCoy
I freehand dog rockets
To hone a Gold Dollar, you don't generally NEED to do anything but HONE it. The thing is, you can't be afraid to start with fairly heavy pressure and a very coarse hone, to get a bevel started. And it won't shave quite as effortlessly as a Method edge on a razor, GD or other, with a smaller bevel angle. But it will shave, and reasonably well if you do your part. Plenty of guys do it. NOT easy to do, especially the first time. Yes, a $4 GD is very expendable. Even a $10 "W" series or 1996 can cheerfully be tossed if you mess it up beyond redemption, with no great flood of tears. A W60 is probably your best bet among the Gold Dollar offerings. Modding a GD will improve a 66, 100, 105, 200, etc but is not absolutely essential for getting a basic shaver out of it. That's on you. Modding a 66 puts you at the W60 level or a bit better if you nail it. My suggestion is to google for "W60 razor" and see what pops up. Try to find one from a vendor recognized by this forum as shipping truly shave ready razors. You will probably pay about $30 for a shave ready W60, is my guess. Worth it. A shave ready vintage will probably cost slightly more. A shave ready unmodified GD66 will cost only a little less, no big saving. Buying raw and honing yourself, from scratch, and the GD66 costs less than a beer in a nice restaurant. The W60, the price of a really nice burger. The W60 will be a lot easier to hone. The 66 will be frustrating as your first razor to hone. So my first choice yeah, vintage. Second choice, assuming cost is an issue, would be a new GD W60, third choice a 1996. A classic 66, all the way at the bottom unless made shave ready by a reputable honer, which again brings the price up to not so much less than a honed W60. How about this... get a shave ready W60 from Fendrihan or some other seller, and also a shave ready vintage from BST or a recognized fleabay seller? Two decent razors, ready to use, for $50 to $70, thereabouts. With a strop, and of course lathering equipment, you are ready to shave in the manly fashion. For a little more of your hard earned dough, you could set up a progression of pasted balsa strops as per the Newbie Honing Compendium AKA The Method. The only thing better IMHO would be to go both feet in, and get a new shave ready Bismarck from Jarrod at www.thesuperiorshave.com. I suspect the price difference would have you going vintage, or W60, or both.
EVERYBODY on fleabay says his (or her!) razors are shave ready. Blade? Check. "Handle"? Check. Wa Lah. This razor is shave ready. There are a few vendors that we know on the bay who are known to sell proper shave ready razors. As for the rest, most don't have a clue. Most don't even shave with a straight, or even know how. Some idiots meaning well but understanding little, as a favor and in an effort to increase the value, will "hone" a razor, not having a clue as to go about it. Some sellers are women who don't shave their faces at ALL. You can't know how to hone unless you customarily shave with a straight razor. If you see a seller who has perfect or near perfect feedback, lots of sales, lots of razors on his ebay store and hardly anything else, and he claims shave ready, maybe you found another one in addition to the three or four we know about. Otherwise, while that razor you see might still be a great razor, and worth throwing in a bid or doing a BIN, it is almost certainly NOT NOT NOT shave ready, so don't have unrealistic expectations just because an ignorant seller throws in that latest buzz word. Members here who claim to be able to hone, can, as a rule. Reputations and all, you see. A shave ready razor listed on the BST is without a doubt shave ready, though standards do vary a bit.
EVERYBODY on fleabay says his (or her!) razors are shave ready. Blade? Check. "Handle"? Check. Wa Lah. This razor is shave ready. There are a few vendors that we know on the bay who are known to sell proper shave ready razors. As for the rest, most don't have a clue. Most don't even shave with a straight, or even know how. Some idiots meaning well but understanding little, as a favor and in an effort to increase the value, will "hone" a razor, not having a clue as to go about it. Some sellers are women who don't shave their faces at ALL. You can't know how to hone unless you customarily shave with a straight razor. If you see a seller who has perfect or near perfect feedback, lots of sales, lots of razors on his ebay store and hardly anything else, and he claims shave ready, maybe you found another one in addition to the three or four we know about. Otherwise, while that razor you see might still be a great razor, and worth throwing in a bid or doing a BIN, it is almost certainly NOT NOT NOT shave ready, so don't have unrealistic expectations just because an ignorant seller throws in that latest buzz word. Members here who claim to be able to hone, can, as a rule. Reputations and all, you see. A shave ready razor listed on the BST is without a doubt shave ready, though standards do vary a bit.
Mostly true with the caveat that there are the occasional times you get unlucky. Most restore jobs that trash the blade are easy enough to tell, but there are guys who know how to use a buffer properly who can (and do) mask razors they trash and sell them. You don't encounter them often, but they're out there. Then of course there are more than a few recent junky razors that are designed to look like vintages, but have junk steel. You'll probably get the wah-wah-wah sound with one in every 20 or so razors even if you inspect them closely... just from the limitations of not being able to hold the razor in your hand.
But the big key with buying vintages on eBay is that no matter what, doesn't matter if the razor looks brand new or looks like it was salvaged from the Titanic. It has pitting in the edge. I don't care if it's shaving your arm so well you think it's ready to shave. Put it under a scope and 100% of the time, there will be micropitting. It just happens when a razor sits un-oiled. And most of these razors haven't been oiled their whole lives... and even if you get one someone already "restored"... odds are unless they had to grind a chip out, they didn't spend enough time on low grit to axe the micropitting on the bevel. A good rule of thumb for hollows is push the razor back at least half the razors' bevel if it looks brand new, and at least the full bevel if there's visible pitting. It often time takes more than that... and occasionally you'll get one that has pitting that makes it more than 50% of the way through the blade all the way up to the spine. Sadly, that's a junker.
@Slash McCoy :you made me wanna try that gold dollar w60. Any advice on where to buy it?
Slash McCoy
I freehand dog rockets
LOL yeah. I have scored a few razors on fleabay that were sort of shave ready, meaning that they were capable of shaving. NONE were up to my own personal standards though. But I am spoiled and there are I think three honer/sellers out there whose edges I have shaved with and could recommend if I had my little list handy. You know who they are, anyway. When I get a shave ready razor these days, I at least hit the 1u film and the pasted balsa progression to .1u, no matter who honed it. Most guys aren't so spoiled, so a good enough edge is good enough.
I have to differ slightly on the pitting, though. If I don't see anything wrong with the apex, I don't care if there is a pit or two on the bevel. There may come a day when enough edge is worn back that a bevel pit becomes an apex pit. That is different, of course. Pitting right at the very edge has got to go. Sometimes making it go, exposes more pitting at the edge and so the process continues until there is no pitting or any other irregularity at the edge. Minor pitting doesn't faze me. When you have widespread pitting that goes all the way to the center plane of the blade, then it's trash. When there is no longer any point beyond which you can hone and not have new edge pitting, it is trash. When you hone and keep getting pitting involved at the edge, then you hone until you don't, and if you won't or can't, toss it. That's my take on it. As long as you can make the bevel meet at a nice consistent and smooth edge, doesn't matter if there are a few speckles here and there.
I have to differ slightly on the pitting, though. If I don't see anything wrong with the apex, I don't care if there is a pit or two on the bevel. There may come a day when enough edge is worn back that a bevel pit becomes an apex pit. That is different, of course. Pitting right at the very edge has got to go. Sometimes making it go, exposes more pitting at the edge and so the process continues until there is no pitting or any other irregularity at the edge. Minor pitting doesn't faze me. When you have widespread pitting that goes all the way to the center plane of the blade, then it's trash. When there is no longer any point beyond which you can hone and not have new edge pitting, it is trash. When you hone and keep getting pitting involved at the edge, then you hone until you don't, and if you won't or can't, toss it. That's my take on it. As long as you can make the bevel meet at a nice consistent and smooth edge, doesn't matter if there are a few speckles here and there.
Slash McCoy
I freehand dog rockets
Not sure, but I think I got mine from Fendrihan. it was reasonably sharp, proper bevel set, and I just hit the finisher and the balsa and it was good to go, as I recall. You can find it cheaper on fleabay or alibaba. I like it a LOT better than a 1996. Honestly if properly honed it shaves as nicely as my modded GDs. If you are curious then I strongly suggest you get one.
I have had a few GD-66s that honed up well and shaved well and the only modification being grinding the shoulders. I no longer use them because of the weight and size of the blade in general. I prefer 4/8 and 5/8 blades.
.Yeah most Gd balance is pretty bad. I’m wondering if the two shoulderless models the have now improved that also.
Steve56
Ask me about shaving naked!
Gold Dollars have their uses that are difficult to replicate with other razors. If you’re matching up slurry stones to a hone for example, you really need 2 (or more) identical razors, same steel, same grind, same everything. So unless you have a spare 7-day set of vintage razors that you don’t mind wearing down, the Gold Dollar wins handily. Same for comparing 2 (or more) hones. Vintage razors didn’t survive 80 or more years for me to wear them out testing rocks or honing techniques, JMO.
Bonus points for not having to argue about honing with tape or no tape, unless you’re taping the edge and honing the spine straight.
They’re also good for putting in the checked luggage for air travel. A lot of decent vintage razors I would feel sorry if I lost (it’s happened) or left one behind in a hotel room. Gold Dollar, no problem except for the labor lost in the initial honing. Another use is for gifting edges when you travel. If you give away six $20 vintage, that’s $120, if you give away six $5 66s, that’s $30, your honing labor not included.
My experience with mostly 208s and 66s are: 10% useless, bent, warped, so badly ground they’re not salvageable, 10% useless unless maybe you have a belt sander and turning it into a thinner razor, 70% usable with the usual Gold Dollar honing methods, 10% good. The quality gets better as the numbers go up, but don’t look for every one to be good. The stainless isn’t.
Don’t worry about the stabilizer. One of the things that you should be learning is to not hone the stabilizer, the Gold Dollar is just letting you know if your honing technique needs improvement. Honing the stabilizer is like coloring outside the lines then complaining about the coloring book.
The scales are the worst part, and they hang around even after thinning the blade, corrective honing, etc. The scales on the new fancy models are even worse on the few that I’ve tried. Put a decent set of scales on a decent Gold Dollar and you’ll be surprised.
Bonus points for not having to argue about honing with tape or no tape, unless you’re taping the edge and honing the spine straight.
They’re also good for putting in the checked luggage for air travel. A lot of decent vintage razors I would feel sorry if I lost (it’s happened) or left one behind in a hotel room. Gold Dollar, no problem except for the labor lost in the initial honing. Another use is for gifting edges when you travel. If you give away six $20 vintage, that’s $120, if you give away six $5 66s, that’s $30, your honing labor not included.
My experience with mostly 208s and 66s are: 10% useless, bent, warped, so badly ground they’re not salvageable, 10% useless unless maybe you have a belt sander and turning it into a thinner razor, 70% usable with the usual Gold Dollar honing methods, 10% good. The quality gets better as the numbers go up, but don’t look for every one to be good. The stainless isn’t.
Don’t worry about the stabilizer. One of the things that you should be learning is to not hone the stabilizer, the Gold Dollar is just letting you know if your honing technique needs improvement. Honing the stabilizer is like coloring outside the lines then complaining about the coloring book.
The scales are the worst part, and they hang around even after thinning the blade, corrective honing, etc. The scales on the new fancy models are even worse on the few that I’ve tried. Put a decent set of scales on a decent Gold Dollar and you’ll be surprised.
These gds are gems! And irreplaceable! Lol. Love em hate em whatever. They work and have extreme value because they're cheap and it's easy enough to order a dozen. They're cheap! Did I say that already? Lol. And don't wait by the mailbox as the sloooow boat from China is exactly what it's described as. Mod them rescale them hone as they are. Or buy something else! Lol.
