Why so little love for the Brass Razors?

[rxonmymind]

Full disclosure: I'm selling one on an auction site..

Anyhow, so my wife & I went to the antique store and bought what she thought was an Aristocrat. Well it wasn't. BUT I was nonetheless proud of her for the find as we got a fair deal on it. Proud as a peacock my wife listed it. She did get a good deal once this cleaned up. So I'm looking at it yesterday sitting there all shiny & glitery and think to myself, "how bad can a 65ish year old razor shave? So I put my Merkur long handle down picked up the Brass and disasembled the required three piece & put it back together. Three day old feather blade with my usuall shower, Proraso lather ect.
MAN! I'm here to tell you it was a smoooooth shave. I hit the angle right as it was very close to my Merkur in substance & shave. Weight wise their nearly identical. I need a weight scale to confirm this. In terms of size, it's a smidgen smaller in circumfrence than that of the Toggle. Just barely. I'm excited. The "newer" blade seemed to be exposed a wee bit more thus giving a more agressive shave. But otherwise a flawless shave. Now the question in the title? Any reason for this? One can pick these up ALL day long like popcorn, yet it's not on anyones likes list. Why? This is like the Gillette nobody wants but tolerates on auction site and cheap!
The irony. Here we are 65-70 years into the future & these Razors are more than holding their own. No? (I told my wife, if no ones bids on this, I'm keeping it.)

 

[echotron]

I got LOTS of LOVE for vintage razors ... now, I got LOTS of vintage razors!

Hey, even Merkur copied the 1904 style Gillette; I got one- open comb version.

By the way, you never specified WHICH model Gillette you are talking about?

 

[TankCommander1554]

Sounds awesome! Congrats to both of you!

 

[tvldatsi]

I've been away from B&B for a while but I'm quite sure that vintage gillettes made of brass cover quite a broad spectrum of value and level of appreciation, spanning dozens of styles and eras

*edit* what I'm trying to say is they're nearly all made of brass

 

[gaj90027]

If it's a 3 piece in brass it could be a Gillette New, Old or Tech. All 3 of those razors are great performers - I say keep it!

 

[El Dingo Satanico]

Just about all of my razors are vintage and half of that number are stripped to the brass. I'll take the Pepsi Challenge with any modern DE; I'm betting my old Sheraton will give them a run for the money.

 

[michiganlover]

I am not aware of Gillette making any razors out of the factory that were bare brass.

Gillette razors are for the most part all brass, but the brass was then plated with something else (nickel, and gold lacquer most frequently).

A razor that was truly brass colored would have all of it's plating missing, and would thus not be a high dollar piece.

 

[franz]

I think there's TONS of love for brass razors - just not as much for the ones with horrible, flaked off plating gorgeous copper patina!

 

[Go West Young Man]

What do you mean 'no love'? All we do is talk all day about how much we love the vintage Gillettes.

 

[HoosierTrooper]

I read the entire post twice and really don't understand it. OP are you complaining that no one seems interested in a razor you have on Ebay?

 

[rxonmymind]

I've been away from B&B for a while but I'm quite sure that vintage gillettes made of brass cover quite a broad spectrum of value and level of appreciation, spanning dozens of styles and eras
I see it as "gold" "ffat handle" "Ball end" 1940 Tech is what I see people describing it as.

*edit* what I'm trying to say is they're nearly all made of brass

I am not aware of Gillette making any razors out of the factory that were bare brass.

Gillette razors are for the most part all brass, but the brass was then plated with something else (nickel, and gold lacquer most frequently).

A razor that was truly brass colored would have all of it's plating missing, and would thus not be a high dollar piece.

True

I think there's TONS of love for brass razors - just not as much for the ones with horrible, flaked off plating gorgeous copper patina!

Gold tech.....

I read the entire post twice and really don't understand it. OP are you complaining that no one seems interested in a razor you have on Ebay?

Shrewed insight, but no, I looking at this example(not mine)http://www.ebay.com/itm/old-brass-l...737?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item3f0f88c321 and it shaves just fine. As opposed to the TTO's that are all the rage.....

 

[klm099]

That's a thick handle tech stripped of all plating, but with only one picture, 4.99 plus 3.00 something shipping, no description of the three components, I'll leave it right where it is. It is a very mild shaver when its perfect, and I don't know this one is
ken

 

[HoosierTrooper]

So, you're wondering why there's not a bidding war over a heavily worn razor on Ebay?

 

[michiganlover]

and it shaves just fine. As opposed to the TTO's that are all the rage.....

I have owned many a Gillette Twist to Open (TTO) Razor, and they were all fine shavers. I also like Gillette Techs. I don't honestly think Gillette made a bad DE razor, although the very late model DE razor (made when DE was already far on the downswing) are not nowhere near as good of quality.

 

[michiganlover]

That's a thick handle tech stripped of all plating, but with only one picture, 4.99 plus 3.00 something shipping, no description of the three components, I'll leave it right where it is. It is a very mild shaver when its perfect, and I don't know this one is
ken

So, you're wondering why there's not a bidding war over a heavily worn razor on Ebay?

+1

A razor stripped of all of it's plating is nearly worthless. A collector has no interest in it, and Techs in far better condition than that specimen can be had all over the place for $10-$20.

$8 for a very well worn (potentially) piece of junk, or $10-$15 for a fully functional Tech with minor plating loss. I think I would pay a few dollars more for a better quality specimen.

There is simply very little interest in something that well worn!!

 

[Oscroft]

Yes, that particular model is not a rare or expensive one to start with, it has all of its plating gone (they were never sold in bare brass), and it's poorly described and badly photographed. Other than that though, I can't fault it

 

[proxymoron]

I made a blind trade awhile back and received a finished brass 1912 that I didn't love although it shaves the same as any 1912. The funny thing is it became my daily shaver for awhile because I didn't care if it got banged, scratched, dinged, donged etc.

Indifference can be just as good as love when it comes to brass razors.

 

[jakespoppy]

One of my favorite razors was a Gillette Fat Boy that, with all it's plate loss, looked like a 3-color tone razor. I used it regularly for a while, really enjoying using a razor that looked so bad but shaved so good. I enjoyed it so much, I had it replated and not long after that grew bored with it and sold it on BST.

 

[rxonmymind]

Ok that was a bad example. I guess I'm grouseing because I paid $35 plus for my Merkur and heaven knows that's "cheap" compared to many other new razors Ej89, Feather and yet here we bought a nice copper/gold plated one for a few dollars that's on par with the newest. Only if I had known I guess.

Newer is not always better.

 

[jakespoppy]

Ok that was a bad example. I guess I'm grouseing because I paid $35 plus for my Merkur and heaven knows that's "cheap" compared to many other new razors Ej89, Feather and yet here we bought a nice copper/gold plated one for a few dollars that's on par with the newest. Only if I had known I guess.

Look at it this way, for a lot less than most new production razors you can still try a number of vintage razors, most of which are still fine shavers.