Its Very Clear to Me After Honing a Lot of Vintage SRs that the Average Guy in the Street Even in the Straight Razor Days of the By Gone Era Were Not that Proficient at Honing SRs by the Amout of Excessive Hone Wear on them & Bad Bevel Setting..Also..A Lot of Photos from that Era Show a Huge Proportion of Men with Beards or Partial Beards..They Obviously Weren't that Proficient with SRs..
These Guys Would have Had Plenty of Opportunities to Learn as Well from Elders or Other People..
Billy
Hmmmm to agree or not to agree?
My fence doesn't have a slight bow so I think that say's it all.
Are you referring to photo's from the Uk or other lands. My sense of history back to the 1800's is of men that are mainly but not exhaustively shaven, even the poorer coal miners etc, being from my studies not age.
My own memory and I'm a mere 1/2 century old is always of my great grandfather and grandfather both coal minors from South Wales, straight shaving. Complete with brush, mug, I always remember it was a stick of shaving soap wrapped in foil. The strop always hung at both homes next to the coal fire, as that is where shaving was done, in front of the coal fire, mirror above.
I also always remember the odd nick or cut but never a blue word was raised, as though it was excepted as the norm.
Now my grand parents never entertained trying to teach me to shave with a straight razor, although I do remember both my uncles and my mum stropping the razors prior to the grand parents using the said items.
My memories from there were of my uncles using DE razors still with nicks and cuts, my dad also using a DE and the toilet roll hanging from his face, right up till myself leaving home. From there on in it was Disposable all the way.
My point is my history of the UK is of mainly shaven men and my factual memory is of shaven men but my knowledge of history for the comman man back to the 1800's ( didn't study further back ) is of predominantly shaven men. Now history I learned from memory was people over the pond were more bearded than not up until a certain point.
This is an opinion, my opinion, it's not subjective.