You’re listening to Wet Shaving Talk powered by Sharpologist.com where we’re dedicated to preserving the art and skill of classic shaving. I’m your host Joe Borrelli and today is April 8th 2024.
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Today on the Show:
Happy Eclipse Day!!
Bottom Dial Gillette Selling for over $2200!
New Bench Strops from Amazon
Paladin Brushes Slowing Down the Pace
Cleaning Your Shaving Brushes… Do You Need to Do it?
One Month With Tabac Challenge! (For Me)
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Cased Gillette Bottom Dial Selling for $2275!
Although not the highest we’ve seen for a cased Bottom Dial (the record was $5362 back in 2021), this one certainly was an interesting auction.
I’m not sure if this cased example is a new “barn find” or just a known model switching hands but we’ve seen several cased models sell in the past 3 or 4 years. What was once only thought to be a wet shaving myth has now become a reality. I’ll tell you my thoughts on why we are seeing more of these pop up.
For more information of the bottom dial check out this article: https://sharpologist.com/gillette-bottom-dial-aqoss/
______________________________________________________________________________New Bench Strops
Recently I purchased two cheap bench strops and some pastes on Amazon for maintaining my straight razors. Although for years, I was not into using pastes, recently I added them on one of my hanging strops and began to enjoy using them.
Both are loaded with pastes, one being .50 micron diamond spray and the other .10 micron diamond paste.
I’ll tell you my thoughts.
______________________________________________________________________________Paladin Brushes Slowing Down Production
Paladin brushes have announced they will be slowing production and limiting availability in the near future. If you’ve been around the wet shaving world for a few years, you’ll know Paladin was very popular back in 2014-2018, with brushes selling out in seconds and going for 5X their retail on secondary sites.
_____________________________________________________________________________Cleaning Your Shave Brushes. Do you need to do it?
Lots of guys do it and alot do not. Should you? I’ll tell you my thoughts ______________________________________________________________________________
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Special Thanks to:
Mark aka Mantic 59
Most of All……….YOU!!!!
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Next Show: 4/21/24
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Transcript (Machine-Generated)
You’re listening to Wet Shaving Talk, powered by Sharpologist dot com, where we’re dedicated, preserving the art and skill of classic shaving. I’m your host, Joe Borrelli. And today is April 8th, 2024.
Hey guys, welcome back to the podcast. I cannot believe it’s already April of 2024. It is going by fast. I it feels just like yesterday we were celebrating New Year’s doesn’t it. It just really what a quick start of the year and now we’re already almost a quarter of way done. So I mean technically a little bit a little bit over it. More than a quarter way down.
Uh, today on the show, we’ve got a few things going on. First, I wanted to say, uh, for all of you out there that are celebrating the eclipse day in the United States, it actually will be visible in certain areas, very, very visible. Uh, make sure you’re wearing the proper eyewear and have a good time. Should bring some relief to all of our Mondays today. I think it’s visible in just about everywhere, but, uh, I saw the line in on the news where it’s going, where it’s going to be completely visible.
So, I mean, you can see a full solar eclipse, or at least really close to one. So for those of you in that area, definitely take a few minutes. Get those glasses or the pinhole thing. When we were kids, we used to use that. If there’s a way to do it just to see it, or if you just see it on your online or on your phone, uh, that’s just as good too. So happy eclipse day, everybody out there. And, uh, bringing a little joy to the first Monday or the second Monday, actually in, in April.
So today on the show, I want to talk a little bit about a, a sale of a vintage item. You know, a bottom dial went for about $2,200, a little bit over $2,200 for a bottom dial Fatboy Gillette, which we talk about these items. I’ve talked about it many times on the in the cast in the future, in the past. Excuse me, and we’ll probably talk about it in the future. It’s one of the most collectible items out there, and it’s now it’s going it’s going up and down in price. But this is actually a bargain because this was a case. Gillette bottom dial for one of the lower prices we’ve seen in in a while.
So maybe this is giving everybody hope that they can. These things might actually be an achievable, you know, uh, purchasable for most of us because it’s actually half the price of the one that was a few years ago that went for about the same, in about the same condition. So I bought some new bench straps from Amazon for some using paste on straight razors. Something I haven’t done ever. Really. I never bought a bench strap or haven’t. I’ve always had my old my old homemade one. But you know what? It kind of fell apart after a few years, so I decided to buy a couple of cheap ones to see if they would work. I’ll tell you my my thoughts and, uh, my take on it. It’s kind of like a mini review on those.
Palette and brushes are slowing down the pace and no longer offering some of the great offerings they used to do. So guys, this is something that, um, that I’ve seen with a lot of vendors, especially vendors that have been around ten plus years, Paladin brushes, dark horse or dark holler brushes. It’s um. It’s a company that’s been around for a very long time, and we’ll talk a little bit more about them back in the days of 2015 to 2018. Uh, they were very popular and going for a big premium. Uh, decided to made an announcement on Facebook last week or the week before that. Uh, that’ll be slowing down the pace, slowing down production and and keeping in with shaving brushes. Something I’ve talked about before, but I’ve tried it. I’ve been recently doing it just to see. And it’s something I was totally against for years. But I’m trying it now and I’ll tell you my thoughts on it as well.
Cleaning your shaving brushes. Do you need to do it? Can you get by without doing it? I’ll tell you my thoughts and my my experiences in the last few weeks when I’ve actually started trying to clean them and one month with to back challenge. Yes, I’m doing it and it’s been not as bad as I thought it would be. It’s still, uh, it’s still fun. I’ll tell you my story, my story on that and my thoughts on that one as well. So without further ado, let’s get on with the show. So case bottom dial, uh, selling for $2,275 on eBay. I saw this one pop up I keep on eBay. Uh, just to let you guys know, you can do this, too. You can put in keywords that as soon as something comes up with, like a certain word verbiage in the in the description, it will pop up and and notify you.
So I have like Gillette bottom dial, I have BZ one razor, I have all the I have all the, you know, Gillette toggle or red dot. I have all of those terms actually in my, uh, saved in there. So if I, uh, red dot or bottom doll comes up, I automatically get sent a notification on the app, so then I can watch it. I mean, it doesn’t mean I’m going to buy it, but I do like to watch the auctions. So this was a cased bottom dial, which as you guys know, if you’ve been on the if you listen to the podcast, been in the wet shaving game, this was something that is always something, always something I was check out look for because the cases in the in the bottom dials are very rare, right.
They’re limited. Very limited. I left the link in the show notes to the article I did several years ago. Based on the whole Gillette bottom dial, the Gillette red dot and toggle concepts. Right. And this is so it’s very rare. So although this isn’t the highest, we’ve seen a case bottom that I’ll go for on, on eBay, the record was $5,362, which was back in 2021. This one was certainly interesting. It went up and down, but it stayed down for a very long time. I’m not exactly sure if this is a case. I
f this case example is a barn find, or if you know what a barn find is like something people just find in a closet or find in a on a barn, like they used to do that with classic cars, or they still do, where somebody would just leave a car in a barn for a years and then, oh, wow, there’s a brand new 1965 Ford Mustang in there or something, or Camaro that nobody’s touched in 40 years. Right. This might be an example that I’m not sure if it is, but it’s or if it’s switched hands a few times.
But it did come from an antique store, so probably with somebody that brought it in. And we’ve actually seen several case models come up in the last 3 or 4 years, which was once only thought to be. Uh, almost a myth, right? There was, I think 4 or 5 years ago, we were talking about it with some collectors. There was only 1 or 2 case examples known. Now there’s at least 6 or 7, maybe eight, uh, that have been popping up. This one’s very nice. It looked like the case was in good shape. Came with the blades and everything else.
The one that came the the one that broke the record. The $5,300 one I had like the had everything. It had the plastic seal on it. It had, um, the instruction manual and stuff. I mean, it was pretty complete. It said, doesn’t get much better than that. So why do you guys think we’re seeing these pop up? Well, I think I have my thoughts on this and I’ll tell you, you guys can email me if you agree with me or not. But I have a feeling that a lot of people, when they get like a present or they get something like something like this special, they kind of like, you get it, put it in a drawer and then forget about it for 40 or 50 years, I guess.
Right. So a couple of stories that I’ve talked to, a couple of guys I’ve talked to about about with the story similar is uh, I knew I knew a man that got a Gillette toggle. He got it for Christmas gift back when they came out, and he kind of just put it in a drawer and never used it. You know, one thing with, with men is that shaving. And this is something my father taught me. He always told me that never buy anybody a razor or anything for Christmas, because it’s a very personal thing to a man, and that’s a purchase that they should do themselves. Right. And he said, and I asked him why.
And he said, because, you know, people, men like their own thing. They’re they get comfortable with their own razor and they like that. And they don’t usually like to switch unless it’s on their terms. At least that’s what he told me growing up. I saw that with the Gillette toggle story as well. The gentleman was using a Gillette Slim or something like that. Not a slim, a fat boy or or a, um, like a Gillette tech or something like that, or maybe a straight razor using something else and didn’t really want to switch to the bottom, but but couldn’t get rid of it because it was or excuse me, the toggle couldn’t get rid of it because it was just such a nice piece in such a nice case.
So he kept it in a drawer and ended up, you know, passing away eventually. And his children inherited it, or they found it, or he just got older and said, you know what? What’s this worth? Let me get rid of this. You know, that’s the kind of stories that you hear. So this particular story was the gentleman was, you know, elderly and decided to just give it away or sell it. And that’s what happened. And you get a brand new toggle. It’s still with the paper shipper on it. And everything never touched was sitting in a drawer for years. Couldn’t I couldn’t get rid of it because it was so nice but wanted to, um, you know, eventually just, but didn’t want to use it because it just wasn’t his style.
Right. I think that’s what’s happening with some of these, if that makes any sense. We’re seeing more and more of these razors popping up at auction sites from antique stores, from possibly from antique auctions, right from estate sales or something like that. Because if people might have guys who bought it or got it for a gift and left it and drawn eventually, now, I mean, it’s been a long time. It’s been 60 something years, possibly passing away and leaving it to their family or just getting rid of them. Right? Just letting them go.
So I think we’re going to see a few more my predictions. We’ll see a few more, uh, very rare shaving, you know, devices coming around, some collectibles coming around. Uh, as the years go by, we’re getting now to the point we’re up to 64 years now since this was made. So 64 years is a long time. And if somebody kept that in a drawer when they were in the 20s or 30s, uh, they’re, you know, it’s coming to the time where they’re probably letting them go now, so or getting rid of the razors or moving or something like that now. So we might see some more of these coming up.
These are, you know, I guarantee you there’s still some really nice barnyard fines or what do they call them. Uh, now it’s still sitting in somebody’s drawer somewhere that’s been passed down, or maybe even just, you know, waiting to, to go, uh, to, to get discovered. Right. These these razors. So could be in an attic, could be in somebody’s drawer, could be just in the garage, or it could just be sitting in somebody’s, somebody’s shop or something. So we’ll see, I think I think we’ll see some more of these coming up. But I think after about a few more years we won’t see too many of them. I think they’ll all be pretty much all of them will be discovered.
So moving on to the Benchtops I was mentioning in the in the beginning of this podcast, I was sitting there with my my straight razors, which I you guys know, I’ve been really backing the straight razor shaving, which I took like some time off maybe a couple of years. I didn’t do anything with the straight razors because I wanted to, um, kind of like, focus on safety razors for a while, and I thought they were fun. I was collecting them. I had a lot of friends that were using, uh, safety razors and talking about the newer ones more than vintage.
So I got into it because it was it was fun. I mean, you don’t I didn’t have anybody locally that I talked to that were using straight razors. So I said, you know what? I’m going to start getting into safety razors. That’s when I got some more of my modern pieces. So lately I’ve been going back to the straight razor kick. And this whole year I haven’t even used a safety razor once. I think I’ve used most of my straight razors. Have gotten I’ve gotten a I’ve gotten a turn in the rotation, and what that means is they need to be touched up. They need to be in, uh, basically with this pasted strop in order to get them sharp again.
So if you use a straight razor a few times, you’ll notice that it gets a little dull and you’ll have to, uh, you know, sharpen it up instead of bringing it to the stones, you can use a pasted strop. Now, this is something I didn’t do very much of for the first few years. I was wet shaving. I didn’t use a pastry shop. I just go right off the hone, go right to the leather, and then go that way with it. Right. And then if I needed to, I just touched it up on like my hones my cuticle and then kept going on. So lately I’m like, uh, you know what? I want to try something new. So I looked for some bench drops with some good reviews, and I found this, uh, sharp owl, uh, 204 N leather strap, which is actually it’s eight by three, which is what got me going. So it’s three inches wide, which is something like you. That’s a good characteristic in a strop, in my opinion.
A lot of guys say, oh, two and a half is fine, two is fine. It is for a hanging strap. But when I’m using a patented strap, I like more width on the leather so I don’t have to worry about, uh, you know, x strokes or anything like that. I can just go up and down and I’m good, right? So I got this strap and I got two of them. One of them was, uh, the packaging was damaged and it was wet when I came home because they got it, they left it out in the rain. Amazon lifted out in the rain. So I asked for a replacement. They sent me a replacement and the other one I let dry out and it kind of worked. So I said, you know what? I’ll just keep both of them cheap enough. They’re only $17 us.
So I said, I’ll try it. And I also got some, uh, DMT diamond spray paste, which was a 50 micron. And I had also at home. I also have uh, some diamond paste, uh, point ten micron. So I did one with the 51 with the ten to get a nice fine edge, something I never usually do. I never went down that far to attend on on honing or excuse me on on keeping my pacey strop sharpened. So I tried it. I’ve been getting really good results so that these little bench drops are really nice. They have little like little filter on on the bottom of them.
So that doesn’t shift around so little rubber pieces and felt and also comes with a little scraper on it or whatever which reconditioned the leather will kind of like if you have paste on it or if you get metal in it, you can just rub this like it’s kind of like a slurry stone, which will just clean it very nicely. Never seen that before. And it does work. I tried it and it did work. I’ve been getting some really good results with it, so I thought for the price $17 delivered in a day, pretty much anywhere I thought was a good deal. I don’t know where it’s made. I think it’s probably made in China, but the leather was pretty good quality, so I’m happy with it and it’s working very well.
So I highly recommend these guys. Uh, the sharp owl leather straps, leather bench straps and. Like I said, it just brings it. Brought back my razors to another, another keenness sharpness again. So I’m going to try with a pace for a little while. I will update you guys because I haven’t. Again, I’m not really the big pace guy, but I’ve been having some good, some good results with them. So try it out guys. Get one of those drops if you need one. It’s also great for learning how to strop like on one of my shopping videos I had on on on YouTube.
I recommend taking a strap on the on the table and just kind of going back and forth because it gives you a perfectly flat surface. These are perfect for that. So if you don’t put any paste on it you can use this drop. It’s the leather is good enough quality to just drop your razor on it too. So great for the beginner. I highly recommend a bench drop of this sort. Uh, for anybody in the in the straight razor community.
So Paladin brushes have been slowing down production. This is something that was announced last week, I believe, or the week before. They’ve announced that they’ll be slowing down production and limiting limiting availability in the near future. So if you’ve been around the wet shaving world for the past, you know, 5 or 6 years, seven years, you’ll know Paladin was extremely popular in that wet shaving craze back in 2014 to 2018, where some of these brushes were going for three or 4 or 5, ten times retail, five times retail was the average, and they were selling out in less than 30s online.
Now, uh, what’s been noticed is I have a couple Paladin brushes. I actually have one left. I’ve owned probably about 7 or 8 of them. They’re really great designs and awesome brushes. But the thing is, I think they’ve been putting up releases and they’ve been staying there. Like, usually when a Paladin brush would come out, I would go online and I’d have to buy it right away. Right. And I have like 10s to do it because all everybody else is doing the same thing. Now they have releases. Some of the new releases. The more rarer stuff would go quickly, but for the most part their inventory was sticking around.
So they decided to kind of shut down some of the special releases, get back to the basics, certain, just certain designs, and they will be, um, limiting production availability and I believe will be retiring in the near future. And that brings us to a couple of questions. Like I said in the beginning of the cast, you know what’s going on with the wet shaving world? You’re seeing a lot of people retire, right? We saw Straight Razor Designs shut down a couple of years ago. You know, Lynn Abrams retired. You got a couple other guys are getting, you know, retiring. And watch this.
The beauty of this is this is, if you think about it, the the new wet shaving, uh, you know, kind of like revival started in late 90s, right? It started really in the late 90s, early 2000 to where everybody started getting back into this and starting to opening businesses. So by 2007 eight, there were maybe 3 or 4 artisans. Now we have much more.
But a lot of those guys that started like, like straight razor designs and and a couple other companies as well, like Paladin Shaving, they’re kind of getting tired, like they say, hey guys, it’s about time for me to call it in. You know, I’m going to retire. And and this is a lot of work and it’s a lot of, you know, it’s a lot of, um, it’s just it’s just a lot a big toll in the body, you know, doing doing brushes. I’ve talked to Peter Wolfe from Wolfe Brushes and he’s like, yeah, it’s not easy to do this every single day and to do 30, 40 brushes a week. You know, that’s why they’re they’re kind of slowing down.
Some of these guys. It’s a lot of work. It’s a lot of physical work. And it’s kind of time to retire. So that’s what we’re seeing. So will we see a new generation uh, come up of of shaving. What shaving stuff I think so I don’t I don’t think what shaving is going anywhere, guys. But I will say that if you do like certain items. Right. Uh, example, if you want a maestro Levy. Levy straight razor made by him. His site is still active in Italy. Uh, you could probably still buy one. I would get one soon because he’s like, he’s. Maestro is like 82 years old now or 83 years old. I don’t know how much longer he’s going to be working. Example. Like, you know, I was talking to somebody about Tony Miller stops. Tony Miller’s been doing stops for about 15 years now.
I bought one recently because a new one, I used to use one back in the day, and I kind of tore it up. So I got a brand new one because I’m like, I don’t know if he’s going to retire soon. There’s a scuttle company. Uh, Scott Scuttle Company based out of, um, I believe it’s Belgium or Norway that they retired as well recently, and I was able to get mine recently. Uh, right before you retire, I think I got one of the last ones because I saw it on the site, and I said, you know what? They’ve been around a long time. I’ve been hearing rumors about them retiring, so I jumped on it. So I highly recommend guys starting to do that now before it gets to, um, too late and you won’t be able to buy some of these special items that have been around for a while. So. Check em out, guys. Paladin. Shaving, uh, slowing down production. Get em while you can, because they might not be around much longer. So moving on to shaving.
Brush cleaning. Do you clean your shave brushes? Do you need to do it? Well, I’m going to tell you my thoughts. In the picture is the one that I have from Phoenix Artists and Accoutrements. I have a cleaning soap and the brush. I have never really cleaned my shaving brushes as thorough as I’ve been lately. I don’t know why I’m doing it. I think it’s just maybe because I wanted to try it. Do you need to do it though? The answer is no, not really. You probably don’t need to do it. Do you want to do it? Do you want to keep them fresh? Yeah. You can I mean so I so the soap, the natural soaps from the shaving soap that you use or, or cream or whatever, it does kind of keep it clean, but it can get clumpy. It can get a little bit dull when you, when you use it a fresh water. Just making sure you thoroughly rinse your brushes out is good.
Now, if you want to wash your brushes, uh, there’s so many different types of methods to do it. Some people use dish soap, some people use shampoo, some people use like an alcohol content thing, a mixture. And that’s fine. That works. But I recommend, um, you know, just kind of keeping it clean with water and then this, this new, this soap. I’ve tried I’ve had it for a while and I haven’t used it in some years. The brush soap from Phoenix Arts and Accoutrements with the with the comb. The comb that you comb it out a little bit when you’re done. It does work really good. It gets it nice and clean. Uh, just make sure it’s kind of works like a shaving soap. But if lathers like a shaving soap, but it doesn’t have all of the, um, it doesn’t have any scent or anything like that, too. It probably has a different, uh, chemical breakdown.
I don’t I didn’t really look too much into it with that, but it did get my brushes clean. And I do like using the brush, the hair brush, just to comb it out a little bit. That does help out some. So with your brushes, I’d say I’d recommend probably doing a little cleaning every, you know, month or so, maybe, maybe more and just keeping it clean. Because remember, it is if you’re especially if you’re using natural hair because it is still natural hair and it does just like our hair, it needs to be washed. But one thing to be to be, uh, cautious about is making sure that you don’t overdo anything.
Because remember, once those brushes are set, you can. If you really mess with them too much, you can break that knot apart and you’ll start getting it’ll start to shed. And once it’s the shed, a serious shedding not starts. It’s over. It won’t ever stop. So making sure you don’t use anything abrasive or very, very chemically, whatever that will break down that glue inside that sets that knot. Uh, just always make sure you don’t do that because you want to keep the knot clean. So keep it clean.
But, uh, do it very nicely and very gently because you want to keep that brush. That brush. Not as good as, you know, as long as possible. So you want to make sure you preserve it. And yeah, I brush. So definitely definitely worth using. I think it’s good every probably 5 or 6 shaves maybe every month. And if you have like a synthetic, a synthetic knot in your brush, you like synthetic brushes. You can go and do this more often. Probably would probably be okay. You’re less damage to the hair. Remember, a synthetic knot can still fall apart, but it’s not as easy to. And also the hair. I noticed the hairs on crunched down and kind of break down either like. Like, uh, with natural hair.
All right, guys, in this month, we’ll. It’s a long podcast today I apologize, but it’s been so long since I’ve gotten a chance to talk to you guys. It’s been it’s been, um, so much going on. I got so much going on at work, at home and everything like that. Always on the go, as we all are. And I just really was excited to do the cast, uh, today and get it going. So I apologize if it’s going a little bit longer than it usually does, but I’ve had a lot to set, a lot going on in the wet shaving world and a lot to say, I guess. So I’m doing a one month with Tabak Challenge. I have the basic to back soap going to be using it with um. With my different brushes. I’m going to use different brush every day. I can’t I can’t use the same brush. So, um. What I’m I’m searching right now on the computer is to see if anybody else has done this. And I noticed a lot of people have done the two back one month challenge. So I’m going to use nothing but regular to back the one in the glass jar for the next month and see if how my shaving experience ends up. I have a brand new jar. I just started using it. Uh, start using it on the 1st April first. So it’s not an April Fool’s joke. I’ve been using it for a week, and I remember that that sent Everybody Knows the scent. It’s nothing wrong with this. And it’s just it’s to back. That’s what it is. So I’m going to try for a month and see how it works. And I’ll update you guys weekly on on my findings on that. And I’m going to use I am going to switch to a few safety razors as well. I did forget how easy it was to lather tobacco I haven’t used in years, and how and how much, um, how familiar that scent is. I mean, it really is a unique scent. So if you if you tried the tobacco challenge for a month or for longer, send me a, an email. I’d love to hear about it because I, I looked it up online and noticed a lot of people actually have done this, so try it if you haven’t. If you have, let me know your results and I’ll let you know mine. All right everyone, that concludes the show for this week. Uh, remember, our show is powered by Sharpologist dot com, which your father didn’t teach you about shaving. Uh, special thanks to you guys, the listeners and Mark Mantic59 for everything he does for the wet shaving community. So don’t forget to check out my blog site, and always feel free to contact me at Joe Deutsch Avenues at gmail.com. And don’t forget, uh, remember my book, The Modern Guide to Sheet to Straight razor Shaving is available on Kindle and in paperback on Amazon. Next show will be on the 21st of April. Until then, shave straight and shave safe. Bye bye now.
