RAD kicking in. Uh, oh.
I've lived in my town my whole life. Today I finally stopped at an antique shop that has been there oh, about fifteen years, that I'd never been to. This one is truly a junk shop. Stuff is everywhere with very little rhyme or reason that I could discern. First smell that hit me upon entering was what I learned was an inaccessible dead skunk in the crawlspace under the floor. You get the idea.
So I'm looking around, and I looked in one glass case and saw, literally, dozens of straight razors, most under elastic straps in velvet wraps that held a dozen or so each. I asked to look at them, and almost all of them are in really nice condition. A few have nicks in the blades or broken scales, but the shop owner had bought the lot from a collector, so most were pretty nice. They were priced $15-$25. I had a hard time choosing one, partly because I don't really know yet what I'm looking at, other than to know to look for certain manufacturing locales. There were Henckels, a Dubl Duck, some from Boston, NY, London, Germany, some of the NY blades even listed addresses (one was a Canal St. address). Mostly black or white celluloid scales; some of the scales had decoration. I didn't even look at the ones in boxes, some of which had bone or antler handles. I could have spent several weeks' pay there. I ended up with the one below, marked "OSKAR KEMPER" "OHLIGS-SOLINGEN" "GERMANY." It required almost no cleaning. It measures 6 3/8" tip to tang, closed, and the blade is 6/8. There were all sizes there, some looked like they might be 4/8, some as large as 7/8 or maybe even 8/8.
Ironically, now that I've finally visited this shop, he's moving it a few towns away.
I've lived in my town my whole life. Today I finally stopped at an antique shop that has been there oh, about fifteen years, that I'd never been to. This one is truly a junk shop. Stuff is everywhere with very little rhyme or reason that I could discern. First smell that hit me upon entering was what I learned was an inaccessible dead skunk in the crawlspace under the floor. You get the idea.
So I'm looking around, and I looked in one glass case and saw, literally, dozens of straight razors, most under elastic straps in velvet wraps that held a dozen or so each. I asked to look at them, and almost all of them are in really nice condition. A few have nicks in the blades or broken scales, but the shop owner had bought the lot from a collector, so most were pretty nice. They were priced $15-$25. I had a hard time choosing one, partly because I don't really know yet what I'm looking at, other than to know to look for certain manufacturing locales. There were Henckels, a Dubl Duck, some from Boston, NY, London, Germany, some of the NY blades even listed addresses (one was a Canal St. address). Mostly black or white celluloid scales; some of the scales had decoration. I didn't even look at the ones in boxes, some of which had bone or antler handles. I could have spent several weeks' pay there. I ended up with the one below, marked "OSKAR KEMPER" "OHLIGS-SOLINGEN" "GERMANY." It required almost no cleaning. It measures 6 3/8" tip to tang, closed, and the blade is 6/8. There were all sizes there, some looked like they might be 4/8, some as large as 7/8 or maybe even 8/8.
Ironically, now that I've finally visited this shop, he's moving it a few towns away.
