Should all razors be date coded?

My take from a vendors perspective and end user. Feel free to disagree.

As a vendor I can't see any value in doing so except if my business model is to make a limited production run to justify higher pricing than what the market normally bares i.e. making a collectible right out of the gate instead of it becoming one later on. The only other scenarios would be for warranty purposes or if it can be leveraged to sell more razors through marketing them as such.

End user seems they want value added since most everyone who is into wet shaving not as a chore but as a hobby or skill are ADHD about razors and never stick to a single razor for a long period of time. It is about resale or provenance of exclusivity driving that concern.

Hi Marko

Your absolutely right everything you said and mentioned that’s a great example Joe from Italian Barber have done it, can’t say one way or other and for price point looks and design it’s truly gamechanger for a good reason lol...

To me since I’m a detail guy it means a lot to me and unique.

I don’t think engraving would cost that much or take much work to do that there are many ways and I have done deep engraving, laser etc name it I have done it.

It also depends how much each or new artisan is willing to go that route and put effort.

Take care 

Alan H

In the case of laser etching or engraving it can get expensive unless you have large production runs done not including setup costs like having templates and tooling to hold the pieces along with programing the machine. If you buy the equipment that is another large cost outlay and usually not worth it unless you can leverage the machine for other uses which is almost a whole separate business in and of itself. Then depending the metal if it is a stainless, stainless doesn't mean no stain just less likely once you compromise the surface you've compromised it's stainless properties and now have to passivate the piece to seal the engraving or etching. That is more money spent but can be justified in other ways like selling your razor with a cert of passivation and banging on the competition that their razors will rust unlike yours then also sell passivation services to seal competitor's razors by selling it as value added and a recurring maintenance cost on yours.

You can hand stamp or use a hand operated arbor press which is much cheaper but it will look sloppy and take away from the presentation and if you are doing large enough runs doing it by hand is not the way to go if you can't afford to pay the labor to do the work. A vendor most certainly is not going to hand engrave anything except for custom pieces and will charge extra for that.

Do you want the date code of when it was made or when it was sold? If the former, would it turn you off to buy a razor with a date code from a different year than when you bought it?

Given the market, I’d say yes, no and maybe. For some a particular date might be desirable and for others it might be viewed as old stock and undesirable. I suppose you could market them as modern NOS. 

And now that you’ve raised the possibility of two dates there’s bound to be customers who want both. Date made and date of first sale. For the truly “particular “ among us you could even track and disclose the name of the machinist(s) that made the razor and the tools they used and where the steel was made and what mine the ore came from and the names of the miners on the crew when the ore was mucked out and......

Sorry I got carried away

Do you want the date code of when it was made or when it was sold? If the former, would it turn you off to buy a razor with a date code from a different year than when you bought it?

Given the market, I’d say yes, no and maybe. For some a particular date might be desirable and for others it might be viewed as old stock and undesirable. I suppose you could market them as modern NOS. 

And now that you’ve raised the possibility of two dates there’s bound to be customers who want both. Date made and date of first sale. For the truly “particular “ among us you could even track and disclose the name of the machinist(s) that made the razor and the tools they used and where the steel was made and what mine the ore came from and the names of the miners on the crew when the ore was mucked out and......

Sorry I got carried away

Did this ore come out of the mine in carts or by donkey ??

Do you want the date code of when it was made or when it was sold? If the former, would it turn you off to buy a razor with a date code from a different year than when you bought it?

Would serial numbers be a feasible compromise? One could conceivably triangulate the date but it would not have the problem above.

Date marking is a pain in the ass, especially if you go down to a quarter. If I make a full year’s worth of razors today and mark them 2020 Q1, I could still be selling some of them in Q1 2021. A new buyer probably doesn’t like buying a year old razor when there would now be new ones marked Q1 2021. Another reason I don’t date stamp is that forums can be super silly and we all know that even if every razor was exactly identical someone on the forums would declare a difference and then that year would be the “best” one. Then new customers would be constantly asking if I had any of the 2019s left over because they heard it was the best version. The reality is that no two razors are ever exactly alike. That’s why tolerances exist. A 5mm hole is never 5mm. Depending on how we tolerance things it could wind up 5.1mm or 5.00000001 and if our tolerance is +0.1, both parts would be accepted, but obviously not identical.

For a molded product like Rockwell, they would have to put the date into the molds which means every time they want to change dates they get to make a new mold. Not only does that cost tens of thousands of dollars, it also introduces more variability because every new mold presents an opportunity for things to change even slightly. Just as no two razors are exactly alike, neither are two molds for the same reasons. They could also stamp or engrave it after, but that would add labor and cost for basically no gain.

how do you account for QC issues that may arise without some way of knowing when a razor was produced?

for example, what if machine shop A produced 1,000 razors for you in Q1 and you found out later on that perhaps the steel they were using had some integrity issues? how would you narrow down which razors might be problematic?

Do you want the date code of when it was made or when it was sold? If the former, would it turn you off to buy a razor with a date code from a different year than when you bought it?

Given the market, I’d say yes, no and maybe. For some a particular date might be desirable and for others it might be viewed as old stock and undesirable. I suppose you could market them as modern NOS. 

And now that you’ve raised the possibility of two dates there’s bound to be customers who want both. Date made and date of first sale. For the truly “particular “ among us you could even track and disclose the name of the machinist(s) that made the razor and the tools they used and where the steel was made and what mine the ore came from and the names of the miners on the crew when the ore was mucked out and......

Sorry I got carried away

Not that it’s relevant, but this is more or less required for aerospace parts. There’s a complicated records system so that every single part can be traced back on every production step all the way back to the foundry where it originated. That way if there’s a plane crash you can see the detailed history of, say, an engine component. I think the stakes are probably lower for razors.

Q:  Should all (anything) be (anything)?
A:  No.  The answer to "should" questions is always "no".

My take from a vendors perspective and end user. Feel free to disagree.

As a vendor I can't see any value in doing so except if my business model is to make a limited production run to justify higher pricing than what the market normally bares i.e. making a collectible right out of the gate instead of it becoming one later on...

So the resellers can boast about a low serial # here on the BST and add another couple hundred to an already bloated resale price.     

If anyone is thinking about the actual maker using the serial # to disclose who the original buyer was then they would be open to being sued as well for violation of privacy laws.

Do you want the date code of when it was made or when it was sold? If the former, would it turn you off to buy a razor with a date code from a different year than when you bought it?

Personally, I want neither. The date code of when it was made could potentially be a turn off, if it was far in the past (far being totally subjective).

For me the only engraving that would make sense is some kind of serial number - not indicating date of manufacture - that could be used either to track a specific batch as mentioned before (in case there was some defect) or - more important - to designate a different release of the product. In some cases manufacturers release improved versions of a razor; in such case I'd like to be sure I'm getting the latest. If this is an obvious change it's easy to check; however if it's more subtle a serial number would be useful, especially when buying second hand.