Yup I was waiting for that, come to the dark side. I was concerned about the shave apocalypse so I acquired more than 1,000 blades, then I started with straights and my stress is gone, my 1,000 blades will last my life time.

Et tu, Brute? You should be the one telling others to go Dorco, not go straight razor!!! You 're a Dorco traitor! Yeah, well, it's always just an arithmetic problem. I have currently 2100 blades. I only have to increase them further to last my life time too without going to straight razor! :rah:

Below represents a bit over 1800 blades. It cost me about $300 total. I don't consider that too much. I have another hobby that I spend between $500 and $1000 a month plus it takes up an large amount of space. So stashing away a few blades is easy. If I don't like some over the years - then I can PIF or trade them. Given my age (and the fact I use one blade a week) - this will easily see me to the end with blades to spare. As I have said before: "When people are out to get you - paranoia makes good sense".

You own an Alfa Romeo? Cool.

No but I did own a Triumph Spitfire (actually two of them). Talk about money pits. Like the saying goes - "if Lucas made weapons - there would be no more war". Between my Harley Davidson and my very active involvement in competitive shooting - I spend a fair amount of money each month. Neither are cheap hobbies. Below is just one of my competition rifles (Springfield M1A1 national match heavy barrel). What is represented in the photo cost about $3700. Even though I do reload my own ammunition - I still can go through an additional couple hundred dollars a month in ammo.

Oh, Cournal! I like your style! And i see that you are a Dorco 301 sympathizer too! Such a maligned blade! I can't believe how many people put this blade next to Derby! And i see that you 've joined the former enemies, the Russians. Heavily so!

I too have my *real* hobbies (and not just hobbies, think books for keeping me updated professionally) that drain much more money easily, so given the situation of blade availability here, i don't see it becoming any better in the future. So i may as well follow your footsteps and build my stockpile now with the blades that are easier within my reach, rather than waiting a future bigger shortage and having to pay 2 or 3 times what i have to pay now and have to deal with foreign suppliers exclusively. At the end, i am not so picky about having the "best of the best" blade, i care more about having blade variety. Besides, you don't appreciate the best, if you use it every day. You appreciate it, when you have something else to compare it with.

I think i will go to a heavy purchase of Personna Red and Dorco Prime next. When i become pensioner, i think i might turn shaving to a real hobby and at that point i may think of getting all the Gilettes. But for now, it's a 10 min haircutting operation, i don't intend to pay 24 EUR for 100 Gilettes, when for 23 i can get 200 Personna Reds, which to me had a perfect balance of sharpness and smoothness and i am sure are less dangerous for nicks. The good thing with me, is that so far i was able to get a very good shave with everything. Even with Derby, provided i do 15 passes. So...

So, i am gonna stockpile and consolidate my position! Also, yesterday, by accident, i ended up while googling for Weishi, to "Aliexpress.com". That's something of a Chinese Amazon shipping worldwide. What i noticed, is that if you search for "razor blades", you get much more hits about multiblades than DE blades. I think, that eventually, the DE shavers in Asia, having access to cheap cartridges, will move to them, just like the West did. And as this will be happening the the market of DE shavers will decrease, i think DE blades quality will drop and/or prices will go up. Yet another reason for me to hoard now. To me, in Italy, knowing that i can today order Shark Super Chrome from the US (via Ebay) at 30+ EUR for 100 pieces, is of little consolation, when i know that normally, i should pay them for less than 10. So, maybe in USA you will be the last to feel the bite of a shrinking market. But i think the DE blade market will shrink... Maybe not in my lifetime, but why take chances? I already have trouble finding some blades or in cheap prices. That's what you get here, if you search in my local Amazon for "Gilette 7 0'clock":

https://www.amazon.it/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?__mk_it_IT=ÅMÅŽÕÑ&url=search-alias=aps&field-keywords=Gilette+7+o'clock

The vendor, is only 1. The same guy from Sweden i 've been talking about, who sends via normal mail. In Amazon he doesn't even sell 100 packs. If i were to buy 100 from Amazon, i 'd pay 50 EUR for 100 blades. Seriously? Are they THAT good, while Astras still go for 10 EUR in the same Amazon or 7.70 at my barber's union shop? I 'd say my local situation is pretty bad and emergency plans are in order.
Blade hardened shelters and bunkers under construction! Plus, like you say, poor blades hardly take any space! You should see how many cardboard boxes with computer parts i have...

Wish I could afford to hit the range more. I haven't been there in several months. I have two CZ-52's I need to sell. Who needs three of them? I have 13 handguns, and own no long guns. I figure that here, in town, it's unlikely I'll need to snipe someone off of a roof - four blocks away.

I need to find a gunsmith experienced in WW-I .32 caliber mausers. I have one that really needs to be looked over. Has the original paperwork with it, allowing it to be brought in as a war trophy.

My God, you're right I really didn't understand.

I think this is part of why we're seeing more of the artisan movement. Small batch, done in such a way that the vast majority of the crazy regulations don't apply.

Anything larger than, say 5,000 square feet of space seems to really get hammered. Of course, it doesn't help when a boom truck picking up a scrap metal bin runs the boom up as high as he can - without checking - and smashes through a 440 line. They had to replace over 15 feet of conduit there, and I understand the fireworks were spectacular. Luckily, the computer equipment survived, although it took three days to restore power to the warehouse. That was _four_ businesses down in a warehouse the size of three football fields. The good part? It happened on Friday, so by Monday at 3 AM, I had the computer systems back online.

Me, personally? I think a lot of the reason the manufacturing has left is simply inventory taxes.

Hmmm. When the SA hits, think they'll start charging excess inventory taxes to the people that have bought, say, more than 1,000 blades?

Agree on the Dorco ST 301 blades. I think they are an excellent blade. I tried the ST 300 as well but thought the ST 301 were better. Inexpensive and work great.

That's part of what I love about this new hobby. Two vintage razors cost me less than going to the range one time. I can handle it either way, but there's a bit moe to show for $50 with shaving. My other love is offshore fishing, boating, and water sports. 50 bucks doesn't get you very far there, but it's so much fun who cares?

It's not about need, it's about the joy of knowing you could hit a nickel on the opposite goal post of a football field if that sort of bar bet was ever thrown out there. Besides you never know when the survival skill of picking peaches from the top of a tree a few blocks down the road might be useful in a shave apocalypse type scenario. Just saying…

Y2K definitely wasn't just a story. It's been a lot of work (and money thrown at it) to avoid disaster.

It's not well known but a Y2K issue even caused the US spy satellites system to crash ... if the Russians had only known at the time

Edit: what really happened is that at first (for years!) the general public ignored the warnings by the technical specialists, and then it suddenly became a hype. If politicians and business leaders had listened to their technical advisors in time, there would have been no need for emergency plans at all. Now it all was last minute planning and a large waste of money.

Yeah. I just shaved with Dorco Prime Platinum SPT301. There are definitely similarities with the ST301 (as in, i got 2 weepers), but i am not sure it's sharper than the ST301.

Anyway, Bladeapocalypse on local level is real. My Amazon, at least, sells directly on its own Astra, Dorco ST301 and SuperMax Super Stainless.

I went to the british Amazon. Their Amazon only sells Astra SP directly. Dorco doesn't exist AT ALL. SuperMax Super Stainless, exists only thanks to "Razor Blades Club", who like i said, is an Italian who lives in Sweden. From what i see, he is almost singlehandidly keeping DE blades alive in 2 European Amazon stores. And i wouldn't be surprised if the same was true for the german and french Amazon. Should he go out of business, in absense of local online stores, Ebay buying from abroads would become the last possibility to buy blades.

The end is nigh! Stock up everyone!

Why don't you just shop at Connaught, or shaving.ie, or BdF (in Holland), or Executive Shaving? Or directly from some of the well known sellers on eBay?

Because, like i explained earlier, most Ebay sellers are in eastern europe, sending international untracked packages. Second, instead of ordering from Britain or Ireland, i may as well order from "barbaebaffi" at this point and get 1 day express delivery with tracking and the fact that British shops exist, still doesn't change the fact that this isn't a good situation. Having to rely to foreign shops. It's far easier solution at this point, to make a big order from here, while there are still 2 shops open. I actually found out yesterday that soloestetica.it, has kept the blades section in her own website too and has also a couple of blades that she doesn't have in "barbaebaffi".


P.S.: Just for record, my general avversion for international untracked packages, isn't just related to the increased risk of the package being lost (our own post services aren't exactly famous for not losing packages). I am currenly living on my own. Anything sent using the normal mail (with the national post service), will pass around 12:00. I won't be at home at this hour. I will have to drive to a post office that isn't so close, because it's the one designated for packages (contrary to the one nearer, which doesn't keep packages). So, every time, for me it's pain, because i have to drive there and wait an endless queue (because one post office serves a very large area for undelivered packages). On the contrary, the italian express couriers, always pass from here past 14:00. At this time, i have good chances to be at home.

Relying on british or irish shops, doesn't say much to the fact, that, once you start looking for international sources for something as mundane as a blade, it means that the situation is precarious and won't be getting better any time soon, actually it can only go worse. I will definitely buy more blades and close my reliance to foreign sources, once and for all. It's going to be cheaper in the long run too.

Well, I live in a small country ... we rely on foreign shops for everything.

I cannot remember ever having lost a package from Eastern Europe. Many countries in that region have a pretty reliable mail network. I just received a (not shaving related) package from Lithuania yesterday, by the way.

Don't worry, the package can be easily lost in the italian mail network. It's why 99% of the italian online shops don't send their packages by the national mail network, but with private couriers. But like i said (i edited the previous post), the danger of the package disappearing isn't my only problem.

Korea is a traditional shaving waste land, the don't even sell Dorco DE blades here.

That is a shame. I found out the other day the dollar store blades I like to use,5 for a dollar, are Dorco's. Solid blades.

The only positive here is that I can order a CJB for less than $20 and Feather Pro blades for $7.50 on line.