I just received the final 2 Utopia razors that I ordered to evaluate after falling in love with the chrome one. At this point there is one chrome, two gold, and a black. The one that I was most excited about getting was the black as it reminded me of my Parker 96R in a three piece instead of a TTO. Sad to say that of the four it was the biggest disappointment. The knurling is unremarkable and it nowhere near the depth and grip of the original chrome and feels hollow where the others are obviously solid. It is also the lightest of the razors at 85 grams which is well below the other three which are quite heavier The heaviest is the 121 Gram Gold with the contoured handle which reminds me which is similar to the D.R. Harris handle on the West Coast shaving website. It is a nice solid handle and I had no issues holding it with wet hands. Next up we have the original chrome knurled handle at 117 grams. Gary did a wonderful write-up of this razor which you can find here http://theshaveden.com/forums/threads/7-days-of-utopia-chrome-razor-back-in-stock.37924/. Next we have the gold six sided handle at 111 grams which is nicely balanced and also had no issues holding with wet hands. Last is the black which I talked about above. I had no issues seating the blades on any of the heads so the alignment issues were resolved well on the new generations. As always, YMMV but the one time I had to contact the vendor about a problem, I was sent a new razor with no questions asked. Here are pictures of all four together and singly on a scale.
Here is a picture of the 85 gram Utopia black, on right, with my 75 gram Parker so you can see how large and flat the knurling is on the Utopia in comparison.
It was actually Brass, not stainless. That was my mistake in the original post, both here and another website that I no longer frequent.
The contoured is very nice, and I'd love to see the hex handle with a long comb NEW head on it. Not seeing that particular one on Amazon; I'm going to have to keep my eye out for it.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00K8MA35M/?tag=thshde-20 They are all under one heading. Clicking one of the four pictured under the description changes the razor style/color.
