I think project Moarteen has made me impatient and when I found a new
Böker 14er at a shockingly high discount, I cracked and ordered this
beauty.
I've been playing with the idea of buying one for close to two years,
but at its regular price of €350+ it's quite the indulgence for me,
especially since I prefer utilitarian design over lavish
decorations. Function over form.
Further, it's this in-between level of lavish. Yes, it's goldwashed,
but a bit sloppily, yes, it has a decorated face and spine, but it's
cheap laser engraving. It's the Trump brand kind of luxury. Shiny on
the outside, but only at first glance. However: every Böker I've
ever tried was just fantastic quality work where it counts: perfect
geometry with no wobble and perfectly even bevels, best-in-class
jimping (which sounds a bit funny to me every time I mention it, but it
makes the shanks just so damn ergonomic, clear straight lines in the
entire geometry, without imperfections ground and filed away and
polished over like Henckels, Filarmónicas, W&B, etc, (not that this
last bit matters for shave quality, but I appreciate attention to such
details, and it gives me confidence that the manufacturer has the
right priorities).
Anyway, enough rationalisation of my impulse buy. I cracked and this
pretty goldwashed modern 14 is the result:
I hadn't seen on the pictures that the scales are actually dark
blurple, rather than black and I like it a lot. Note that the goldwash
is uneven around the shank and even missing on a spot under the
"14". The shiny decorated face and the little tree inlay in the scales
look even better in person, but I didn't have the patience to fiddle
with the photo setup to capture them right.
The shank shows what I mean when I say that Böker has the best
geometric tolerances among all mass-producing straight razor
manufacturers I know: The spine and tail are rounded for comfort, but
the curvature flows into the perfectly rectangular cross section of
the shank that makes Brad Maggard get all dreamy saying "there's just
this nice, big, flat spot for you to put your thumb and fingers
on". The
transition is perfectly symmetric viewed from the top (should have
taken that picture too, but oh well). You can already kinda see it in
this picture, but the jimping is perfectly regular on both the top and
bottom of the shank.
Here's a better view on it:
See it? Isn't that just the nicest grip you've ever seen on a
mass-produced razor? BTW, It's the same quality on my vintage Böker
S.S. Paris wins which I described in some details during last year's
TabOKtoberfest, the
pretty
Abalone, and
on VisceralWatch's Böker that I test-shaved
recently. The QA
in this company seems consistently good where it counts (i.e., not the
goldwash 😅).
The spine is also prettily decorated similarly to a 472/472½
Friodur. Nice if you're into that kinda thing.
Finally, it wouldn't be a fancy Böker without the deadly point 💀
I'm looking forward to giving this new 14 a wirl. I'm also curious
about the factory edge on this.
Sinus blockage--;
Get well soon!