When I first tossed my mach 3 and embraced wetshaving with a DE I was only interested in holding a shiny, heavyweight razor. Plastic would no longer do. Plastic is tacky and cheap, metal was where it's at. When Merkur introduced their 3-piece bakelite razor (model 45) I was initially not interested but eventually thought it would be a good choice for travel. It's lightweight, compact and wouldn't be devastated if I lost it. So I picked one up. To my surprise it's made its way into my razor rotation and I get a great shave from it. With the feather-weight I find it has a lot of feedback. You get more of a feel of what you're doing and it's easy to maintain the correct angle and light pressure. A razor originally produced to conserve metals for the war effort, I feel, does have its advantages. Occasionally I see guys post about vintage bakelite slants. I totally missed out on it but some time ago italianbarber came across a stock of unused slants somehow and sold them off. I've been seeing these very razors pop up on the bay from time to time and are fetching pretty absurd prices on the order of $150 and up. For someone wanting to try one of these out it seems supply is scarce and demand is rising. This brings me to the purpose for this post. I emailed Merkur about the possibility of producing a bakelite slant. It sounds like they would be willing to offer one if there was more of a demand. I encourage anyone reading this who may also be interested in this to send Merkur a quick email expressing interest. Maybe we can generate enough buzz for them to consider releasing this razor. They can be reached at dovostahlw at aol dot com.
No offense, but if they were open to the idea, why haven't they re-released the Walbusch B5 adjustable slant? It even uses the same handle and mechanism as the Progress, and there is a demand for the Walbusch B5 razor.
The Walbusch B5 razor is of the kind of slants I like: With tilted head rather than twisted blade. It looks like a razor that would be nice in many ways!
