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.
Very cool razor! As you already know, I like these a lot! But that’s only from reputation. I have the same feeling about the finish work on my Dovo Facharbeit as you do on the work on this Böker. Form and function ‘A’, glamour ‘C’.
Great write-up and photos, BTW.
It's a German razor, after all 😁
I was thinking the same but held my tongue 😅
Even as a younger german, I definitely need to agree. We have this strange fixation on punctuality and efficiency (except for the Deutsche Bahn, the laughing stock of german public transport). If other schools of thought postulated that "form follows function", the german way is definitely "Function over Form!"
Made in Germany is still seen as a promise of good quality, but often at the expense of weird/ugly/boring design 😅
Nevertheless, congratulations on the new razor! Hope it'll give you many comfortable shaves.