in what year did msn wetshavers debut online? what about yahoo clubs? assuming that msn wetshavers shaving forum was the first shaving forum ever in history, were they around like in 1995? if wetshavers went online in 1995 and yahoo clubs in 1997, how does the shaving tips and advice given by todays forums differ from the tips and advice given back then? would anyone happen to know how todays forums are better than what was available back in 1995/1997? rsvp
You might want to ask these folks. They have been forumizing a la wetshave since the Pleistocene. MSN Wetshavers Dr. Moss or Bernards66 on the Shave My Face forum Joel on Badger & Blade Straight Razor Place Yahoo group Lynn Abrams on the Straight Razor Place forum Sharpologist website Mantic59
The pre-historic straight razor place Yahoo group started in 2000. MSN "Wetshavers" debuted in 2003 (though there was a group that pre-dated that for a short time but it suddenly closed). There was a competing MSN group, "Wetshaving" at the same time (LINK with a little more info). Tips were largely the same, though there was only a fraction of the products available compared to these days so a lot of the advice then took into account the limited supply. Today's forums are "better" in quantity of traffic and variety of opinions. The old forum days were much more civil and accommodating with a much higher "signal to noise ratio." IMHO
Lynn Abrams has been dead for a few years now. R.I.P. I wasn't a member of the forums back then, but I did lurk, probably starting about 2005...ish. Vintage razor prices were stable and low. Rare razors were about $150. I mean really "rare." I bought and sold sets that are worth over a thousand dollars now. 2005-2015 were the Golden Age of collecting razors. People were discovering eBay. Estate sales were a ready source of razors, and antique stores were just starting to explore the online world of sales. The Gillette Fatboy was the King of Razors, and good examples were $25. If you wet-shaved, you did so with a Gem, Schick, Gillette or straight razor or a modern Merkur razor. Dating razors beyond Gillette's date code system was an art rather than a science. We didn't know much. We didn't even know about aristocrat jrs. ...for a number of years, they were just "double ring rockets." Even as all the research was being done to categorize vintage razors, modern razors for wet shaving were taking center stage. The biggest differences? We shaved with old razors we knew nothing about, and beard mapping was an exciting new theory. Nowadays, wet shaving forums are driven by marketing, rather than collectors.
