Gold Dollar – Shave ready Straight Razor (6/8”, Round Tip, Carbon Steel)

UPDATE (11/19/2018): I bought a few vintage sight unseen razors from a seller on another websitw that were sold partially restored but shave ready and they massively outperform this. While I do appreciate the GD208s forgiving nature when learning to shave, I feel that I quickly outgrew it. Maybe I just got tired of the maintenance of the softer metal its made of compared to the German steel I now slice my hairs off with. I strop all of my razors the same but time and again my vintage razors always feel better during my shave instead of feeling like I'm struggling a bit on the last bit. Original: I've been using a shavette for quite some time and I go tired of the brutal shave it was giving me, even with feather DE blades. So I began my search for a decent starter straight razor. I found myself attracted to the nice etching and gold work of most TI Razors, but those were way too high, even though I knew I wanted to go this way. I just couldn't justify spending that much. After a while I found myself eyeing Dovo's and those were still a bit high for me. I know, I'm cheap... Then I came across this exact listing on here. For the price I though 'Why not?' This razor is quite amazing for the beginner. It's cheap enough that if you mess up the bevel you can afford to get it sharpened. or if you break a scale (I doubt it, but you never know) fixing it won't break you. Definitely a starter razor at an entry level price. This review is only about the shipping and initial quality for now, as I am still waiting on the strop I ordered to get to me. I placed my order on Tuesday, it was shipped Wednesday and I received it Friday. This is definitely the fastest "standard shipping" I have ever seen. The razor itself is quite sharp and passed the HHT right out of the box. I've seen other reviews about the scales being cheap and having some play in them. Mine came tight and seem OK for what I paid. I definitely wasn't expecting anything amazing, just a decent blade that will last me a while. *First Shave: it was pretty satisfactory, I stropped the blade quite a bit and had at it. No cuts or razor burn and I did get through all of my face. The video tutorials and letting my barber do it a few times definitely helped. 3 month Update:: I've been shaving with this razor 2 times a week and it is still going strong. I've switched soaps to soap commander and it has improved my shave quite a bit. YMMV. Still definitely recommended for the price! 6 month update:: Still shaving twice a week with this blade and it is still as sharp as the day I got it. With regular stropping, of course. I have used the green stropping compound on it a few times, though I am unsure if it necessarily needed it. I actually just shaved with it 3 hours ago and I am BBS with no nicks, irritation, redness or cuts. This thing had already out lived how long I thought it would last. If your thinking about getting one, just do it.

This is my favorite blade now. I have three straight razors, all gold dollar 208. I bought the first one shave ready and after my training period of about a week and cutting myself three times I got the hang of it. I have been looking for NO stubble, but I guess on my face it is next to impossible since I have never been satisfied. A straight razor comes the closest so far. I dropped my first 208 in the sink and the end broke off, it still works and I like it because now the cutting edge is shorter. What I don't like, and this may be just me but there is a lot of bright red label on it and every time I shave I see the red and it makes me nervous. Okay, I know that is not a good reason to not like a razor but that is the only thing I do not like about it. My second razor I bought dull, not shave ready and had it sharpened at a place that was not that far from me. Yes, I could have tried it myself but I wanted to know how it was after a ... professional sharpened it. Okay, total price was more then getting the razor on here shave ready and it was not any sharper. So, simply get the shave ready on line. The third one (this one), I bought shave ready, does not have much red in the design ... just the one dot... is nice and sharp. I thought I would test it against my safety razor so tonight I shaved half my face with this straight razor and the other half with my safety razor and the safety razor won out. I want to compare it to my muliti-blade razor and see what wins but that will be next week. Need a new blade for my gillet fusion. update, I have three Gold Dollar straight razors and one has rust spots on it. I also have three Todd Sweeney replica razors and other then I am still working on getting them sharp they seem to be better steal then these over all. At least as far as rust because they have gotten wet just as much as these and no rust on them at all. Looks like a person should stay with a safety razor although I am also trying a shavette straight razor. I don't see anyway that one will win out though and one still needs to replace the blades. UPdate, I would suggest the shavette or the safety razor and simply pick the blade that is the cheapest. I have spent countless hours trying to get a straight razor sharp or have it sharpened by so called professionals all to no avail. Oh, you may wonder why the five stars after what I just said. Well, there is nothing wrong with the quality of this razor and the stars indicate the product and not how well I or anyone else can sharpen it. The steel is good and it is a good razor. Cy

The blade is "shave ready" without the need to hone or strop (although stropping would improve the edge) for the first shave which gives the newbie a low cost entry into straight razor shaving. But, if you have experience with straight razors and want a replacement blade you will be disappointed with the quality of the workmanship of the scales (handle). The scales are not attached symmetrically at the pivot point on the razor I received which forces the blade, when folded back into the handle, to go off center enough to hit the scales. One must exercise great care when folding the blade into the handle to prevent the blade from making contact with the handle and dulling the edge. If my level of commitment to mastering the art of straight razor shaving persist, I will upgrade to a Germany (DOVO, BOKER) or French (THIERS- ISSARD) made blade (this razor was made in China) and the necessary stones to properly maintain it. And, I will deliberately dull this razor to the point where it will not cut so my friends, who have shown an interest in learning, can use it as a "trainer". If you develop a passion for straight razor shaving, you will quickly out grow this blade. This blade has virtually no resale value where as high quality blades do.

This arrived as true shave ready. I have used some razors that where "shave ready" but still struggled cutting my very tough chin beard. This one does not have that problem- it is extremely sharp. It wasn't very smooth though- It could use some extra polish on a higher grit stone but most people probably wont notice. QC is lacking on this Chinese brand of razors. I have to be careful when closing the blade so it doesn't touch the scales (handle). Also, mine arrived with a shoulder thicker than the other so it would not lay flat on the strop on one side. This issue was fixed after I contacted the seller and sent it back. The seller ground down the shoulders and now it lays completely flat. The general concensus on the shave forums is that these razors are of good steel and can shave as good as the much more expensive German razors but the qc is lacking and that sometimes extensive work (such as grinding the shoulders down) will be necessary.

First of all, Gold Dollars are just that. Gold Dollars. Please don't think you should be receiving Dovo or T I quality in the mail when you order this. This is a nice step up from the #66 Gold Dollar offers, and totally different from the absolute garbage razors being sold out there in this price range. I still will be doing some grinding work on the heel, but I don't have to. Yes, the scale are cheap. If you're in to good quality scales, that will be a problem for you, but they are not garbage or falling apart. Just cheap plastic. Personally for me, the scales are an after thought to the blade so it doesn't bother me one bit. They will last. The tang feels good in my hands and it is very polished and smoothed - for the price. The pivot pin is well set and tight. I can hold the scales with the razor upright, half open and the angle doesn't move. Once again, this razor will not live up to any high quality company's standards. But it was $20.00. That makes this razor the steal of the century. This razor must make the Germans shake in their shoes. How does it shave? That all depends on how well the person did who honed it, now matter how expensive the razor is. This razor was advertised as " Shave Ready." For you new guys - you can get really ripped off in this area and "Shave Ready" should always be met with skepticism. This razor absolutely came shave ready and I shaved three passes WTG, XTG, and ATG without even stropping it. Smooth shave. Cut great. Kudos to the guys at the Blades Grim, they just made a me a big fan. For the "Shave Ready" snobs out there, no, this was not worked for 20 extra minutes on a 12000 grit stone. So it can use some improvement and we all like the edge to be at our personal liking, but it was honed with care. Soooo, if you are new to str8 razor shaving and you want a good shaver from a company that delivers what is says, or if you want a Gold Dollar to satisfy your curiosity about all the commotion they're causing - buy this razor now. I will state again, this is the steal of the century.

This thing arrived today. From what I've read here and there you're not going to get an acceptable, useable straight for less than a hundred bucks. Those guys obviously haven't discovered this little gem. For a $24 razor, I'm seriously impressed. It's thicker, and noticeably heavier than my Dovo. Some may prefer that, I'm still feeling it out. The first thing I did was evaluate the scales. Cheap plastic, and it's actually really tight - which I don't personally care for. But if you're buying any straight for the scales you're doing it wrong, you can't get a good shave with scales. Onward and upward, I shaved a small patch of arm hair. I won't take it near my face if it can't at least cut that - right out of the box it cut as clean as my dovo did. So, on to the next step - blade inspection - OK, I did those 2 out of order. I was excited. Don't judge me. Holding the blade edge up and looking down it, it was about as straight as you could ask for. The edge doesn't have any apparent veers or bows, nor did the spine. The thing that troubled me is that the shaving edge isn't straight. At the toe, it curves up sort of like a canoe, and does the same thing at the heel. No, I'm not referring to that rounded edge they put on the last 1/8" to 1/4" so you don't swipe your ear or nick the heck out of your face, I mean the last half inch or so just barely curves up. For those who don't understand why that is bad - it doesn't sit level on a sharpening stone and I won't be able to sharpen that last half inch towards the toe until the blade wears down a little. Someone, either the manufacturer or at blades grim, messed up the grind. Maybe mine was just made on a Friday. I probably should take a star off for this, but again it cost $24. If (when) it becomes a problem I'll take it to the stones and work it out. So the third step - sharpening. I know it says shave ready. And we all know what shave ready means - it isn't. So I broke out the water stones and gave it the full treatment. I did countless strokes at 220 to try and wear it down. I'll work that bevel off the toe if it kills me, but this attempt was only marginally successful. I wanted to use it, and now, so I moved on and worked my way up to 12,000 then it was off to the strop. Fresh polishing compound applied, and did my typical 50/50/100 routine. I don't use that many for every shave, only for the first one right after taking the stones to a blade. Lathered up and gave it a run. I gotta say it did it's job. No nicks, no cuts, no physical discomfort shaving, no razor burn, just skin every bit as smooth as my Dovo leaves it. I can't quite put my finger on it, but something just felt off the entire time I was shaving though. Kinda like that sleazy feeling you get when you turn down a date with a classy girl for a raunchy one night stand. Felt so wrong, but oh so right.

Great product for price! I was interested in straight razor shaving but didn't want to blow $150 on a razor. This was a good way to see if I wanted to invest in something fancier. Right out of the box was sharp and shave ready. Didn't need to strop until the 3rd time using it. Package comes with a how to pamphlet which is nice but YouTube videos are more helpful. The blade itself comes with a tacky logo painted onto the blade. That can be easily scratched off so it looks nicer. I guess a lot of blades have that logo so that's why I didn't remove a star. Once again, Good product for the price. I recommend it. Edit: I recently bought a dovo razor ($160) and I can see the difference in the quality. I am not going to remove starts because for the price, this razor is still amazing. It's a bit bulky (being a 6/8th), heavy, and I think the steel in soft because I had to continously stop it to keep it sharp but it is still a great "intro to shaving" razor. I put it as driving a pt cruiser thinking it's going to perform like a mini cooper. Both will get you where you need to go but the pt will never perform like the mini but you wouldn't want to learn to drive in a mini because it will hurt your wallet a lot more to bang up.

I'll admit up front I am new to straight razor shaving, however I've sharpened knives to where you could shave with them, so I know how to assess an edge and how to get a mirrored, beveled edge to a blade, this blade didn't have either. Looking at the edge under high magnification I could see a bevel, but it was a very uneven, on one side of the blade it faded out halfway up the blade, and there were many score marks visible from the stones. I have some new whetstones I bought just for this razor, so I'll see what I can do to improve the edge. I tried the trick of popping hair off the arm holding the razor off the skin, it grabbed a few, but didn't really cut them. Dragging the edge across my thumbnail wasn't feeling like it was grabbing. I read some reviews saying the scales were flimsy, or the blade wasn't centered, but I don't feel they're flimsy, the pattern on the handle looks nice, and my blade closes centered. As a curiosity, the label on the razor in the ad says "Gold Dollar" on the razor, mine says "Grim Dollar". Hope that ain't a sign! Update: To be fair I thought I'd try shaving with it "right out of the box". DEFINITELY not "shaving ready"! I've managed to staunch the blood loss, next I will attempt to sharpen the blade. .