Vintage vs. Modern...

Yea but one would think a 60 year old razor would cost more than a modern razor. Granted many more were produced, but some of the modern razors can run several hundred dollars which seems excessive IMO. Smaller production would indeed bump up the price, but with modern CNC machines it should be easier than making dyes like back in the day.

 

In general, 60 year old pennies are still worth - a penny. Age alone does not engender value. Vintage commodity items in large quantities are still considered commodities, rather than rarities.

I had a long, involved discussion with my father, who is a mechanical design engineer (retired), who worked with electrical systems and did prototyping. There ARE shops that will do short runs for not that much money, but the real price savings would be if they produced large quantities at one time of each part. I think that many of the boutique razor producers do limited runs of each part, so they can excessively customise.

Let's look at the production path for CNC of a single three piece razor, in brass, then nickel plated. That's about as simple as it gets. (Replica Tech)

First, you need a solid. That's a 3-d cad drawing specifically designed for prototyping. Let's call it three parts, all machined out of blocks, rather than assembled (more wastage, but simpler production). Use the NEW cap/head. That's probably the simplest. One rod extending out to either side of the central screw, one base plate, and one handle. Handle is female threaded, cap is male threaded. A good CNC lathe/mill combo can produce the entire part, plus base finishing/linishing. We'll look at three CNC machines going at once. Assuming that each one is completely cut, machined, threaded, and polished, then another blank is automatically inserted.

Estimate about 15 minutes per piece. With three machines, that's one complete razor per 15 minutes. Material cost is likely about $10 each, with wastage. If you want to do a run of 500, that's 125 hours of production. Unlikely to require any human intervention once started. Each part will be coated with oil for protection, which is fine. Then, deliver those 500 to a nickel plater. A good thick coat of nickel is probably an hours worth of time (overestimate, but includes insertion and removal time), and a large scale plater can probably do at least 300 of the pieces at a shot. So the 1500 pieces would be 5 hours of plating.

You now have your finished 500 razors. No packaging, but that's a minimal issue. You can order custom packaging, or just get cardboard boxes and put nice labels on them (my preferred option). Those 500 razors cost 130 hours of labor time, plus materials. So you're looking at a minimum (guesstimate) of $8,500 to produce those 500 razors. That's $17 per razor, not including packaging, marketing, shipping, or taxes. (aluminum, with anodization, would probably be similar)

Mass production still works best (with metal) through stamping. That's why the AK-47 is so cheap. It's made in huge factories that stamp and weld almost all of the parts - and they can't be field serviced. When they break, they have to go back to a central factory. It's classic Soviet mentality production. When it breaks, you get another one. With an M16 or similar, pretty much every part on the entire gun can be produced by a small machine shop. (excepting, perhaps, the barrel).

These are VERY rough guesses. I haven't taken a solid to a machine shop to ask (yet). I am planning on it, because I'm insanely curious, and I want real numbers to counter a lot of the .. horse puckey that I see flying around.

 

one has to factor what $1.95 in 1950s dollars is in today s dollars..didn t canada drop making pennies because it cost 1.5 cents to produce each?just something i heard....not verified.its easier to copy and modify an existing product. to invent and prove its worth (r and d) costs huge.brass is very repairable when damaged.stainless steel is harder to repair if dropped and bent.we are lucky that brass was cheaply abundant in the past.there are tons of old brass razors out there that have serviced their owners for decades and are still in great working condition.new technology is great but a model t wheel is still round.

 

Let's leave Canada and our wonderful new plastic money out of it.

One of the issues was the cost of metal in the penny (zinc), yes, but that presupposes that there's not additional value in the penny beyond the intrinsic. Keep in mind, all money is just a promise of value backed by a government. So, people say "it costs more than X to make them!" - my response is "How many years of use do you get out of that penny?" As I _still_ see the occasional wheatback penny run in the change dish, etc, it's obvious that the money retains that trade value for decades.

I also think that the various X dollars then is worth Y dollars now are skewed. One, we have more things to buy, and two, commodities then didn't have the same costs associated with them that we have now (or lack thereof). Milk then came from small dairies (not mega corporations), and was distributed by hand, grocers and butchers were used, not supermarkets, and so forth.

 

i agree.

 

It's a tool designed to hold a blade. As long as the handle holds the blade securely, at the proper angle and is made of a material that will withstand the rigors of hot-soapy water every day, I'll use it. Having that in mind, I use vintage plated brass, modern stainless and aluminum as well as a couple of earlier design plastic cartridge razors. I don't use Zamak, Bakelite nor "repeating" tape and/or foil razors.

 

Why not Bakelite? (which, I've been informed, is actually B-ah-k-eh-lite, by my father who grew up with the stuff)

 

IN-ter-est-eeng.

 

"an early form of brittle plastic, typically dark brown, made from formaldehyde and phenol, used chiefly for electrical equipment."

Do you really want to immerse those compounds in hot soapy water then apply them to your face?

 

Um.. Why not? It's not as brittle as all that - it's just not as flexible as something with PCBs. It's extremely strong. If you read up on it, you'll find there area lot of steps in the manufacturing, so you're not likely to be drinking formaldehyde (which, BTW, is a natural byproduct of digestive breakdown)

 

I like both vintage and new...and that goes for DE, SE and SR!

 

There were bakelite razors, a.o. made by Philips. Given how many survived, they cannot have been that brittle.

Bakelite was invented by Leo Baekeland, by the way.

Edit: TBH, that many survived does not mean that they survived without any damage; look out for chips and cracks.

 

The chemicals are bound. It's not a hazard.

 

High carbon steel straight razors & cellulose. Ack!

 

cellulose? You mean a cardboard razor? Or one made out of celluloid?

 

I had pretty much the same conversation with a machinist who runs production machines. Your estimates on the cost of a razor are a little over what he estimated, but besides that, they can be produced at low prices. It's just that companies will try to get as much as they can for their razors as long as the market allows for it, i.e., the consumers.

 

You are correct, Sir! I misspoke. The damage is commonly referred to as Cell Rot. If I recall celluloid was before Bakelite and our modern plastics. Either no one knew about the long term effects, or they didn't expect razor scales to last that long.

 

They absolutely knew, within 5 years or so, how much of a problem celluloid could be. Children (and adults) were injured by celluloid exploding. My mother told me about children that would snuggle up near the fire or stove, and their dolls exploding. (West Virginia coal country) Celluloid is VERY flammable. If you have a broken piece you don't care about, toss it in a fire one day. It goes BOOF! quite quickly.

The reason it continued to be used was that it was still less expensive to make than carving because you could mold it easily, and if it was in items that weren't intended to be heated, no problem. Rotting - nitrocellulose is, after all, plant fiber. If you kept it reasonably dry, you wouldn't get the rot. Keep in mind that scales aren't difficult to replace if you have someone that knows how. (I know how, but I don't have the parts) Blades, on the other hand, could be expensive. I'd guess that people that used their razors regularly, ended up with replacement scales reasonably often. It could also be coloured prettily.

 

As I said - I suspect that the boutique sellers are charging the money because they're doing very small runs of each handle design, and so forth (*cough* Wolfman *cough*) . I'm also seeing a lot of investment in custom packaging. Just having cardboard boxes screen printed with your business information can be pricey, let alone fully customized packaging.

 

The question becomes this.

If I, for example, had 500 NEW copies manufactured, would there be enough of a demand to sell 500 razors at, say, $55 a pop?