Two new pre-bloom.
A 27mm butterscotch Polo and a faux ivory 3xl, both in heritage hair.
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A 27mm butterscotch Polo and a faux ivory 3xl, both in heritage hair.
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Morris & Forndran Blonde Badger
- Thread starter Loric
- Start date
OK, this may sound like a silly question, but I am going to ask it anyhow 
Is Heritage Hair a form of Blonde Badger? If not, did the Butterscotch handle get mislabeled, or does he label all heritage hair as Blonde Badger as he doesn't have a Heritage Hair identifier like his Blonde Badger and Finest identifiers?
P.S. Those handles look really, really nice.
Is Heritage Hair a form of Blonde Badger? If not, did the Butterscotch handle get mislabeled, or does he label all heritage hair as Blonde Badger as he doesn't have a Heritage Hair identifier like his Blonde Badger and Finest identifiers?
P.S. Those handles look really, really nice.
I've only seen M&F brushes labeled as 'Blonde' or 'Finest.' I'm hardly the expert, but I'm starting to think Blonde Badger is more of a trade name. I'm almost positive all Heritage Hair brushes I've seen are labeled Blonde.
OK, this may sound like a silly question, but I am going to ask it anyhow
Is Heritage Hair a form of Blonde Badger? If not, did the Butterscotch handle get mislabeled, or does he label all heritage hair as Blonde Badger as he doesn't have a Heritage Hair identifier like his Blonde Badger and Finest identifiers?
Heritage is a Higher grade of 2 band Blonde, so techincally it is still Lee's Blonde hair. They are both labelled BLONDE though. It's too bad they are not labelled HERITAGE to make it easier to distinguish when people are swapping them on the BST, like his FINEST is.
He also has 3 band, which sometimes is stuffed into a BLONDE handle, but other times may be labelled SUPER like Rooney's are. The one below was mine (now traded) that is a M&F Chubby Super 3 band.
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I have two Blonde Badger and three Heritage hair brushes. All five brush handles have "Blonde Badger" labels.
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Thanks guys 
I used my M&F Chief in Imitation Ivory for my sons 9th Birthday shave. I really love my M&F brush. It's definitely the densest brush I have, but it is nice and soft at the same time. Weird I know, but it's how I describe it, dense and soft.
I can totally understand how so many of you have multiples of M&F brushes. I hopefully will get a second one soon.
I can totally understand how so many of you have multiples of M&F brushes. I hopefully will get a second one soon.
Stand in front of your current brushes, state his name three times "Lee Sabini, Lee Sabini, Lee Sabini". Now spin around clockwise and repeat the phrase "I will own an M&F brush" 4 times. Hope on your left leg, while touching your nose with your right hand, twice. Then repeat on the other leg and with your other hand.
When you have completed the above successfully, not once but twice in a 5 minute timeframe, check your inbox for a PM.
It should be there by the time you are done.
I don't know for sure, but assume the term "Heritage" as applied in description of some badger hair Lee uses in M&F brushes derives from the Rooney Heritage line of brushes:
R.A. Rooney Shaving Brushes: Rooney Heritage
This is a line of shaving brushes from R.A. Rooney that looks back to the company's earlier days. The designs chosen for the handles are much like early Rooney brushes and others found in factory archives.
All brushes in this line are completely handmade from the finest materials available to the brush maker today. The lathe turned handles are of an Imitation Bone material that is of an "off-white" color much like natural bone.
The badger hair used for the Heritage brushes is a special grade of two-band Silvertip badger hair, used exclusively in this range of brushes, the so called "3rd Generation Heritage Silvertip". Many feel that the quality of this hair is much closer to that of the Rooney Finest than it is to the “standard” Rooney Super. One thing that all agree on, however, these brushes are some of the most densely filled brushes on the market. (See http://www.vintagebladesllc.com/shop/Rooney-Heritage/)
First, I'll play my broken record: There is no such thing as as a Heritage, or a Rooney Super, or a Morris & Forndran Blonde, or Simpson Manchurian badger. No Chinese trapper has ever gone out into the wild with his apprentice son and, while pointing toward an animal moving in the distance, said in a hushed tone conveying both reverence and excitement: "Ho, look yonder! That beast there is the elusive Heritage badger, whose hair is much coveted by customers of Rooney, the oldest shaving brush company in the world, and Morris & Forndran, a brand with mysterious ties to the venerable Rooney. The coat of the Heritage badger is much closer to that of the Finest badger -- sadly now believed to be extinct like the dragon of old -- than to the Super Badger, the latter being almost as common -- if not as tasty -- as chicken feet. Together we will catch this badger, and my good customer in England, Mr. Sabini, will be very pleased and reward us generously."
Now note the comparison to Rooney Finest hair in the promotional statement copied from Vintage Blades' website. To the best of my knowledge, no one talked about Heritage hair before Rooney ceased to apply the Finest label to its brushes. But when old Rooney Finest knots became unobtainium, there resulted a highly unsatisfied demand for something closely comparable to old Rooney Finest hair. I don't know which came first: 1) Rooney started comparing the higher quality grade of hair it used in the Heritage line of brush handles to its former Finest grade, or 2) some customers made the connection and posted about it. It really doesn't matter. The point is that both the Finest and Heritage labels, as applied to Rooney and M&F hair grades, can be very fuzzy and confusing.
For a discussion of what it means to be Finest, see this thread. In it, I argue that based on my experience with Rooney and M&F brushes bearing the Finest label, those with knots made of hair graded by Rooney as Finest (including one M&F in my collection) are very easily distinguished from all other Rooney and M&F brushes I own or have had the opportunity to try. That might fairly be taken as acknowledgement that there can be significant differences between hair grades. And, of course, there often are. But for the most part, the Blonde Badger label and Heritage designation aren't very reliable as indicators of what you'll get in terms of subtle characteristics and qualities when you purchase a brush so designated. This isn't to say Lee misrepresents anything when he uses those terms. But IMO they are anything but precise in their meaning. The Blonde Badger label has been applied to countless brushes made with knots from who-knows-what number of variously sorted hair-batches (in fact, I've been told batches are typically sorted and re-sorted many, many times) that comprised donations from more badgers than we want to think about. The same holds for so-called Heritage hair. If you search this board carefully, you'll find discussions about different eras (or vintages) of Heritage hair.
What Lee does when a customer makes contact with him is try to figure out what that customer wants. If it's a new customer, and he says he wants Heritage hair, this tells Lee the customer probably wants a relatively dense knot. But beyond that, Heritage doesn't convey very much useful information. And neither does Blonde Badger, other than that it should be of high, if not necessarily highest, quality. After some experience with a customer, Lee gets more dialed-in with respect to meaning and preferences. However, there's no way to escape the fact that both communication about a particular brush and ongoing efforts to match product labels with expectations involve approximation that must vary over time. So if you request a brush with Heritage hair and then find out it doesn't look or feel quite the same as someone else's brush with Heritage hair, that doesn't mean you're the victim of a mistake or, worse, bait-and-switch.
In total about 150 brushes with Chief faux tortoise handles were sold in and around the Group Buy (between launch in late April and November 2013). They were all labeled Blonde Badger. But it was impossible for Lee to make that many brushes from a single batch or sort. Or maybe they ended up all coming out of the same batch, but one which was ultimately (and to some extent variously) made from different batches and multiple sorts over time as knot-production progressed. Many users wouldn't notice or care about the differences. I and some others did. I pay very close and critical attention to brushes. But although I sometimes find I'm more in the mood for one brush than another on a given day, I wouldn't say that any of the Chiefs I've seen or used is of higher quality or otherwise better than another Chief (or more or less deserving of the Blonde Badger label). There are simply subtle differences. And therein lies the fun.
R.A. Rooney Shaving Brushes: Rooney Heritage
This is a line of shaving brushes from R.A. Rooney that looks back to the company's earlier days. The designs chosen for the handles are much like early Rooney brushes and others found in factory archives.
All brushes in this line are completely handmade from the finest materials available to the brush maker today. The lathe turned handles are of an Imitation Bone material that is of an "off-white" color much like natural bone.
The badger hair used for the Heritage brushes is a special grade of two-band Silvertip badger hair, used exclusively in this range of brushes, the so called "3rd Generation Heritage Silvertip". Many feel that the quality of this hair is much closer to that of the Rooney Finest than it is to the “standard” Rooney Super. One thing that all agree on, however, these brushes are some of the most densely filled brushes on the market. (See http://www.vintagebladesllc.com/shop/Rooney-Heritage/)
First, I'll play my broken record: There is no such thing as as a Heritage, or a Rooney Super, or a Morris & Forndran Blonde, or Simpson Manchurian badger. No Chinese trapper has ever gone out into the wild with his apprentice son and, while pointing toward an animal moving in the distance, said in a hushed tone conveying both reverence and excitement: "Ho, look yonder! That beast there is the elusive Heritage badger, whose hair is much coveted by customers of Rooney, the oldest shaving brush company in the world, and Morris & Forndran, a brand with mysterious ties to the venerable Rooney. The coat of the Heritage badger is much closer to that of the Finest badger -- sadly now believed to be extinct like the dragon of old -- than to the Super Badger, the latter being almost as common -- if not as tasty -- as chicken feet. Together we will catch this badger, and my good customer in England, Mr. Sabini, will be very pleased and reward us generously."
Now note the comparison to Rooney Finest hair in the promotional statement copied from Vintage Blades' website. To the best of my knowledge, no one talked about Heritage hair before Rooney ceased to apply the Finest label to its brushes. But when old Rooney Finest knots became unobtainium, there resulted a highly unsatisfied demand for something closely comparable to old Rooney Finest hair. I don't know which came first: 1) Rooney started comparing the higher quality grade of hair it used in the Heritage line of brush handles to its former Finest grade, or 2) some customers made the connection and posted about it. It really doesn't matter. The point is that both the Finest and Heritage labels, as applied to Rooney and M&F hair grades, can be very fuzzy and confusing.
For a discussion of what it means to be Finest, see this thread. In it, I argue that based on my experience with Rooney and M&F brushes bearing the Finest label, those with knots made of hair graded by Rooney as Finest (including one M&F in my collection) are very easily distinguished from all other Rooney and M&F brushes I own or have had the opportunity to try. That might fairly be taken as acknowledgement that there can be significant differences between hair grades. And, of course, there often are. But for the most part, the Blonde Badger label and Heritage designation aren't very reliable as indicators of what you'll get in terms of subtle characteristics and qualities when you purchase a brush so designated. This isn't to say Lee misrepresents anything when he uses those terms. But IMO they are anything but precise in their meaning. The Blonde Badger label has been applied to countless brushes made with knots from who-knows-what number of variously sorted hair-batches (in fact, I've been told batches are typically sorted and re-sorted many, many times) that comprised donations from more badgers than we want to think about. The same holds for so-called Heritage hair. If you search this board carefully, you'll find discussions about different eras (or vintages) of Heritage hair.
What Lee does when a customer makes contact with him is try to figure out what that customer wants. If it's a new customer, and he says he wants Heritage hair, this tells Lee the customer probably wants a relatively dense knot. But beyond that, Heritage doesn't convey very much useful information. And neither does Blonde Badger, other than that it should be of high, if not necessarily highest, quality. After some experience with a customer, Lee gets more dialed-in with respect to meaning and preferences. However, there's no way to escape the fact that both communication about a particular brush and ongoing efforts to match product labels with expectations involve approximation that must vary over time. So if you request a brush with Heritage hair and then find out it doesn't look or feel quite the same as someone else's brush with Heritage hair, that doesn't mean you're the victim of a mistake or, worse, bait-and-switch.
In total about 150 brushes with Chief faux tortoise handles were sold in and around the Group Buy (between launch in late April and November 2013). They were all labeled Blonde Badger. But it was impossible for Lee to make that many brushes from a single batch or sort. Or maybe they ended up all coming out of the same batch, but one which was ultimately (and to some extent variously) made from different batches and multiple sorts over time as knot-production progressed. Many users wouldn't notice or care about the differences. I and some others did. I pay very close and critical attention to brushes. But although I sometimes find I'm more in the mood for one brush than another on a given day, I wouldn't say that any of the Chiefs I've seen or used is of higher quality or otherwise better than another Chief (or more or less deserving of the Blonde Badger label). There are simply subtle differences. And therein lies the fun.
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ChiefBroom,
As always, thank you for the very well thought out response. I really appreciate it.
I have no idea if what I got from Lee is Heritage, or Blonde Badger, or some variant of unicorn hair. What I do know is my brush is super dense, pretty darn soft, and I love it. That's all that matters at the end of the day.
As always, thank you for the very well thought out response. I really appreciate it.
I have no idea if what I got from Lee is Heritage, or Blonde Badger, or some variant of unicorn hair. What I do know is my brush is super dense, pretty darn soft, and I love it. That's all that matters at the end of the day.
Always putting it into perspective, thanks Chief!
I also have a brush made with that, and I can tell you it's definitely like no other!
So, your son is shaving at 9? Or was his 9th shave on his birthday? Seems like that many shaves in a day would cause quite a bit if irritation...
No, yesterday was his 9th birthday.
Thanks Ken.
If it wasn't for you, Lee would not have been able to steal all my money!
The Chief is awesome, I dare say, the best group buy ever.
If it wasn't for you, Lee would not have been able to steal all my money!
The Chief is awesome, I dare say, the best group buy ever.
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