Description
NO RETURN NO EXCHANGE ON THIS ITEM
The USFWS is *extremely* difficult to deal with in the 2020s, the policy at TSS is that you can return anything you wish as long as it is not hair scissors (if you’re in the biz, you know what’s goin’ on!) or anything governed by the USFWS. I don’t know why tough for mammoth tusks, didn’t that thing already pass away? Well, in any case, technically it is (long extinct) ivory in some sense, so there you go. There’s an annual limit, though it is so rare, all North American vendors of this item combined are going to sell much less than that limit 🙂
Given the USFW headaches which you cannot possibly imagine, I’m only keeping the permit because of exotic straight razor handles like this one; you-know-where’s all but killed off the market of European shaving brushes, so we’ll still import those from Dovo and Thiers-Issard because they can ride along with parcels of much larger value, but the days of being able to import inexpensive and not-from-you-know-where shaving brushes are deceased – USFWS restricts the quantity (24 units of dead animals) and value (max $5000 in the parcel) of items so low, and assigns such a fees basis so high (after UPS/FedEx/DHL get their cut, ~$250-300 of bs just for the right to move that box), that the overhead of USFWS-and-shipping-company-related accounting creativity per unit of inventory is too high to hide to you in the retail cost.
In every case of these types of USFWS-governed items, we’ll sell the item with individual pictures of the stock; you get exactly the item you choose. If you have any further questions about an item you’re “considering”, contact us, we’ll make a video, stand on our head…whatever you want us to do to clarify better looks at the inventory, as if you were in our office. But no refunds for USFWS-*restricted* items; it just isn’t fair for someone to return this for simple buyer’s remorse given their now extreme exclusivity because of the outrageous USFWS muscle-flexing (note that you see no other vendors in North America offering these items!)
“Handmade in France”
Made by hand (and uniquely so), the Thiers-Issard brand is, in this one opinion, the most hollow ground and flexible razor left in production today. They’ve produced straight razors for nearly 100 years in Thiers, France, with traditional methods confined to this most special of nations, such as lead tempering and the use of a single forging die and multiple hammer/reheat/hammer cycles versus the quicker method employed elsewhere where a progressive series of forging dies are used in sequence with just one heating cycle.
‘188’ is the designation Thiers-Issard gives to their finest razors of all, which are hand selected for the very best exhibited concavity and then given their special mirror polish on both sides of the razor. With some exceptions, “188”s also feature anti-slip file jimps on both the bottom and the top of the razor’s tang, for the best possible grip. But it is the exceptional concavity that is the star here, as well as that they offer some unique handle materials and face designs only reserved for the “188” stock.
This version of the 188 is a 7/8″ model with their “Le Chasseur” (‘the hunter’) trademark inlay upon the front of the razor. The handle’s made from genuine mammoth tusk, which are hunted for by crazy Siberian guys in what amounts to their summertime and then portioned off at high expense to various European cutlers for handles; they were readily available from the late 2000s until 2016 or so, but then they weren’t giving any to the cutlers for more than seven years. The approximate weight of this razor is seventy-one grams, making it the heaviest razor in our shop!
“Shave Ready”?
This is, obviously, an extremely special razor. I’d prefer you took it as TI made it. If you elect for the factory edge (= do nothing, no note needed @ checkout), you’ll receive your razor exactly as its manufacturers intended…pretty simple!
If you elect for The Superior Shave to further hone your razor [plz add “note to vendor” @ checkout], I will oblige you, and I will *obviously* make a YouTube video on something crazy-exotic like this, and your razor will be delivered to you Guaranteed Shave Ready! The Superior Shave hones via a method best coined (by the old Thiers-Issard director) as “the opposite of tape“, where the hones’ shapes cater to performance and little else; you begin with your coarsest stone that’s shaped as the smallest imaginary wheel, and you progress to finer abrasives shaped like larger wheels, thus honing from the spine toward the actual edge, leaving a *thin*, concave edge first and foremost.
The convex honing methods were used at Thiers-Issard for many years (they’re the ones that told me about it in the first place ~2010), though [as you can see in the video at top] today as the natural stone convex wheels once used are now commercially deceased, they use 5 pairs of ~flat discs to establish a cutting edge which is then ultimately refined with a dual-grit pasted strop. While I’ve tremendous respect for Thiers-Issard’s method and believe many people will love its shave straight out of the box, if you don’t mind more visual queues of honing, for my own face I prefer the concaved edge, and thus that is how I hone your razor when requested. If a commercial wheel fine and slow enough to establish a concaved bevel still existed, I believe they’d probably still use one.
There is no wrong or right choice for factory edge/further honed, but please do not believe all factory edges are never ‘Shave Ready’, that is an absurd yet common belief. Their intention is certainly for you to only need to strop the new razor (after wiping off the factory oil) prior to shaving to receive a terrific shave. Thanks for reading this, and happy shaving!
