Where to buy blades?

[Adam]

Just thinking as you do, where do you all buy blades from?

I finally found that holy grail blade for me the POLSILVER SI. I have scoured a few american popular shaving sites, Ebay, Amazon and these blades are pretty hard to find. There is only 1 real ebay seller with limited stock (which I purchased 100 from, awaiting arrival).
So in short im worried I wont be able to find them in 12 months.
I see on here and other forums people purchasing blades by the thousands. So where do you find them in high quantities?

 

[borked]

I've some I will consider trades
Some may equate to ~1,400

 

[Drubbing]

Mensbiz for sane quantities of SI's. ebay for anything else.

 

[alfredus]

There is another shaving forum...I think it is called B&B?
There either in the vendor section or the hobbiest section is a guy from Romania I think who always has them and sells them for a very reasonable price...

 

[filobiblic]

There is another shaving forum...I think it is called B&B?
There either in the vendor section or the hobbiest section is a guy from Romania I think who always has them and sells them for a very reasonable price...

That place (or YKW "You Know Where" as it's affectionately known here) is a labyrinth...with many hidden dangers!
As with any deal on the Internet, do your research and go with a trusted seller. eBay/PP at least will provide some financial security if the deal goes bad. Not saying do deals, just be careful....
I've bought blades from online shaving stores, eBay and from the odd forum...

 

[Pjotr]

Just thinking as you do, where do you all buy blades from?

I finally found that holy grail blade for me the POLSILVER SI. I have scoured a few american popular shaving sites, Ebay, Amazon and these blades are pretty hard to find. There is only 1 real ebay seller with limited stock (which I purchased 100 from, awaiting arrival).............. I see on here and other forums people purchasing blades by the thousands. So where do you find them in high quantities?..............

Yeah, but don't get too hung up on what you might find to be the holy grail of blades at this moment and go out and buy 1,000s of the damn things. I thought half the fun of DE shaving is trying other blades. If you've got a hundred arriving why get stressed about getting any more? By the time you've got through that lot and your technique improves (everyone's technique improves and changes) you'll suddenly find lots of other holy grail blades. Look at poor old @Drubbing for instance. For years swore blind he wouldn't touch a Feather and ragged on anybody who said anything positive about them and now he doesn't use any other.

.......So in short im worried I wont be able to find them in 12 months.........

You cannot be serious! Give me twelve months and I can guarantee you I can get enough Polsilvers to last every shaver in Australia and the next three generations of off spring enough to last a life time.

 

[Nick the Knife]

IMHO PJ's above advice is very solid.

Pol SI's are top tier in production blades but not as good or to be confused with their namesakes from a few yrs back. I think the current ones still sell often at an inflated price due to this past glory while as good or better in production blades are availble considerably cheaper.

Remember oftwn using a different razor changes how the blades perform, so going all in on one blade often tricky.

 

[Monsta_AU]

As someone who has made some big purchases over the years..... by all means go and get some 'bulk' if you feel like you want to have those particular blades for the foreseeable future. The PolSI's are decent but not what I would call a top-tier blade in any sense. I would put the PermaSharp Supers in front of them in every metric - sharpness, smoothness, longevity, price, value.

But as @Pjotr says - what you believe to be your grail often changes after a while. I bought a tonne of GBE's and while I still like them as a blade, they are not my grail. I certainly do love them however! After that purchase I found Spoilers, Schick Plus Platinum, and a number of other vintage edges which turned me into a vintage blade tragic. I remember @Nick the Knife bought a large amount of Dark Platinums and swore at the time he would be using only his lifetime supply. That has most definitely changed about 5 years later!

Various razors will change the blade experience, but also your skill will help markedly. As your skills improve and y0u hold a more consistent angle along with the speed and direction during a shave, blades that didn't work well for you previously often do much better. Derby are a case in point for me. Hated them when starting out, now I get a perfectly acceptable shave out of them. No, the shave is not like I would get with a Spoiler or Schick Platinum Plus but the result is definitely very good.

Unless you come across a big stash of vintage blades at 20c/blade, don't bother buying the vendor out of stock. There is no joy in shaving the exact same blade, razor and cream/soap every day. Variety is where the fun is, so by all means get a reasonable amount of blades but get something else too.