Pricey, but it looks good............... https://www.therazorcompany.com/products/design-94-titanium-double-edge-safety-razor
I have never ever heard of a company choosing to use pure titanium for a razor. Most use grade V titanium alloy, for durability reasons, if nothing else. I wonder if the machinist even tried to talk them out of it? @twhite what would be the benefit of using pure titanium for a razor over a titanium alloy? If I remember correctly, pure titanium is about as soft as aluminum and wears just as quickly. I like the look of it though.
To draw in Newbies to Wet Shaving, who have more money than sense. The "Hey look at what I can waste my money on guys" crowd. .
Though I fully understand any buyer owning any product they desire (it's their money and decision), I must admit to not being sold on the durability issue of razors like these. I'm using 80 to 100 yr old razors made of cheap alloys, plastic and bakelite that are still solid as a rock. Look great too. I'd never begrudge any ones purchase, and it sure is a beautiful razor and I'm sure an excellent shaver. Hopefully a sound investment as well. Just my thoughts when I read similar ads about 325 dollar razors made for durability and generational stuff.
That's how I feel about pre-shave oil. A solution for a problem that could be fixed by showering before a shave and focusing on technique, lather, and pressure. The razors of yesteryear were arguably better polished than than we would see today (better craftsmanship) and they plated razors better, using chemicals that have been banned by the EPA. They also used higher quality/purity zinc alloys. We will not see razors like that again. Even so, there were hundreds of other razor designs that really didn't make the cut, quality wise, from the same era. We don't see too many of those around anymore, since most were consigned to the rubbish heap of history. I do happen to agree with you. Plated brass would make for just as good a razor as most of the stainless designs. Better in some cases. We also had companies that pushed the envelope back in the 1930's. Darwin made a De Luxe from cobalt chromium steel and a standard from stainless steel. I'm sure the cobalt steel razors were the 'lifetime' razor purchase of their day, but I've still seen a few with cracked baseplates. To be fair, most of them look as though they were manufactured yesterday, and seem untouched by the passage of time. They were also a huge pain to manufacture, and I'm not sure if they could be reproduced today in their orignal material. They were cast, heat treated and machined. The Darwin alloy recipe is no longer used, and was pretty much only used to make rocket engine housings and engine blocks if I recall correctly. It was replaced by titanium and other modern alloys. Most 80 to 100 year old razors have not been in use during that entire time. Very few were used a fraction as long before they wound up in our hands. I've handled a few single rings that were so worn, I considered them dangerous to shave with, as they wouldn't hold the blade centered, and were obviously used by the owner for decades, perhaps a lifetime. Any Gillette razor made before 1988, I would expect to last 20 years of daily use, and any made before 1950, 40 years of daily use. I've done some more research on titanium, and there are a number of pure grades, so using pure titanium isn't that big of a head scratcher after all. Grade 2, 3, or 4 would work okay, grade 1 is softer than 2, 3 and 4. Grade 4 would be the best of the four grades for hardness and corrosion resistance. Grade 5 is the alloy that pretty much EVERYONE else uses because it's better in pretty much every way than the pure titanium grades. I'm sure whatever grade of pure titanium they used is good enough. I just wish I knew why they made that choice.
On the producer website, the Short (actually normally long) version is nice. https://www.design94.co/en And the "pure" anodized titanium color is great.
