So I ran into a jumpy (i.e. smiley) English number. Been nearly two years since I ran into it on eBay and won it in an auction. Most expensive blade I ever bought. It's a nearly 6/8ths width, maybe 11/16ths for much of it, but quite wide. There is a definite purposeful smile to it, a double shoulder that suggests very strongly it was meant to be. Removed of subtle chips it was left to the bin. Until, of course, it saw the attentions of my later honing stones. Then it finally saw the light. I finished it on the Spyderco Ultra-fine hone, after it had finally realized my understanding of goodness. And I just shaved with it for the first time finished on its goodness (Dr. Moss is a good reference for understanding this post). Oh yeah, it is good. Sooooo good. It shaved my underlip (mustache) area and around my lips well, and I used the whole edge so I know its good. I used a straight edge yesterday, which made using a shaving device at the 27th hour kind of unnecessary, but for skin conditioning reasons it made sense (I want back in) and it worked beautifully. I love my Spyderco Ultra-Fine hone, now. Only one side. Took a lot of practice strokes with eBetray finds (not luck finds) to make right. I was just trying to learn how to best make use of a two inch honing stone, not "lap" a stone into functionality. But here it is, another "victim". So good. Thank you, Taylor (whoever you are), and your "Eye" Witness Sheffield steel jumpy smiling blade design (so sexy, it is (says my inner-Yoda)), whoever used your razor probably had quite a time of it, considering.. With "1918" scratched into a scale, he might not have had the ambition of living beyond the next week. Who knows? There are plenty of German blades out there... A beautiful piece of shaving history; quite relevant today, axually...
