Shaving doesn't have to be a chore.

I used to think it was...for almost my entire life, I had a job that required me to wear one uniform or another (and therefore required me to be clean-shaven). So, I was always having to scrape my face before going to work.

On the few occasions I could grow a beard, it always turned out to be a pitiful exercise in futility. One, my whiskers didn't grow evenly. I'd have bare spots on my cheeks. Now, I could grow chin whiskers just fine...which leads me to my second point. Itching. After about a week, I couldn't take it anymore, and they'd have to come off. Quite the conundrum.

In my 40-some-odd years of shaving, I've used just about everything short of a straight razor. Truth is, my hands aren't that steady, and I'd probably cut my head off. I don't recollect what my first razor was, but more than likely it came out of a bag of cheap disposables. I tried electric razors, too, but they felt like the whiskers were being ripped out of my face instead of being cut cleanly like on the TV commercials. I do recollect having a three-piece travel razor and several different types of cartridge razors. After 20 years or so, I wound up with a '70s black-handled Gillette Super Speed. It came with me when I moved to Austin back in 2003. I was also using a myriad of disposables...cheap no-names from a plastic bag, a women's Venus a friend had given me (don't laugh; that thing could literally fly over my face and give me the closest shave)...but for some reason, I got rid of the Super Speed and scored a '65 (K4) Slim Adjustable. I'd been using a Czech-made brush, too, using whatever soap I could get at HEB's in a Homer Laughlin coffee mug (I used to collect restaurant china years ago). The pucks were cheaper than the canned stuff and lasted longer. I'm a horrible tightwad, but I digress.

Old Faithful

So, about a year ago I started searching online (can't say why 'cuz I don't know why) about wet shaving. Could have been the fact that my brush had shed most of its bristles. Or maybe I was getting bored with Slim (after 8 or 9 years). Whatever the reason, I joined an online shaving forum and caught a severe case of RAD (Razor Acquisition Disorder) and have been hooked ever since. I now have 29 vintage Gillette double-edge (DE) razors, and just started on single-edge (SE) injectors (waiting for the mailman to bring me some blades for my newly-acquired Schick Type L, as stores don't seem to carry them). 

Of course I had to get blades for all these treasures, so after doing some research, I now have over 1300 blades of some 35 or so different varieties (the $5 plastic fishing tackle boxes were tailor-made for razor blade storage). I do get carried away sometimes.

There's method to my madness, of course. Several years ago, I gave my oldest grandson my coin collection. Some +400 coins from over a hundred different countries, all neatly displayed in three zippered Meade binders. My youngest grandson will get my collection of 30-some-odd vintage coffee pots. Soon, the middle kid will get the majority of these (some I'll keep for my own personal use, of course). Are they worth anything? Maybe not...the most I'd spent on any one razor was like 47 bucks for a 1947 Milord, and the least was $5.50 for a post-war Heavy Tech (an excellent razor, btw). Are they "collector grade"? While some do appear like-new, they are all common and easily obtainable razors. Not like a Red-dot Toggle or something. A razor, like anything else, is only worth what you're willing to pay. Will they ever be worth anything? Who knows? By the time the kid gets my age, maybe so. A couple of things for certain, though...they are all good, clean user-grade razors, and they're all pretty damned cool.