old blades

I have aquired several old blades along my way.
none of them I particularly care for.
so I pose the question.
are they something I should hang onto?
Are they worth anything?
they are starting to fill my space.
Pontiac, Gillette blue blades, thin blade, and couple of others.
only the Pontiac felt very thick.
y'all give me some input.

 

PIF
Some folks that's all they use.
I've tried. Don't care for them.

 

If they are clean and rust free and you have a good stropper then you can get a couple of good shaves out of them. I have done it many times. Don @gorgo2 will come by soon to have a discussion point on this.

 

What Gary said.

Value-wise, as in resale, carbons are pretty much worthless unless it's a full countertop display box that either a collector or some fool like me will hoard away to shave with. The only exceptions I can think of would be a HUGE usable stock of them, in the 100s or 1000s, for peanuts (like the Blues that Planofman got a few years ago) or sealed mint Kromex (maybe), or a pack just to fill out a razor's case from the same era. Other than that, there's no real value. Anymore, even lesser stainless blades are as good as the best ever carbons.

 

I have seen a tool that holds the de blades for stropping.
do you use one?
what is it called?
does it work well?
can you post a pic of it?

 

I know some folks use the inside of a drinking glass.

 

I think the real value may be when you sell your cased, vintage razor on ebay and stage the picture beautifully with an original, old razor pack.

 

Here is a Kriss Kross stropper. From a use standpoint it is easy and is effective.



Here is a Twinplex stropper.




Handhoning and stropping with a DE hone and leather is better but takes a lot more time.

 

Twinplex (not mine but same model)

Aloxite hone (mine)

 

This is actually a good idea, though you don't actually need a bulldog clip.

 

I use old carbons most of the time. I have a large supply of various brands and it took quite a while to learn how to use them. But now I pretty much know the characteristics of my carbons and which ones work best in which razor. The shave you get from a carbon is by its nature very different from the shave you get from a stainless blade so you can't really compare carbons and stainless side by side. If total comfort is what you want, stick with stainless. If very good shaves with retro equipment interests you then you might want to begin to explore carbon territory.

 

I enjoy carbon Gillette thins a lot.