Vikings Blade The Emperor and Augustus adjustable razor

Looks like a copy of the Crusader. It wasn't good enough for Yintal to rebrand the Parthenon/Nostalgic razors, they had to go out and copy the Crusader. I guess there is some truth to the statement that the Chinese will copy the best razors over rebranding another Chinese one.

Yes, that’s precisely the point. Douglas Smythe is always saying that, don’t go for the lowest common denominator and push out the innovators.

Listen to this excerpt at the 3 minute mark. He couldn’t have said it any better.

Would anybody like china ripping off Blackland, Wolfman or the REX Ambassador razors?

Products can be manufactured in China, but the same Chinese manufacturers shouldn’t be ripping off their customers and sell a knock off.

Artisans continuously improve their products with new releases or innovations.

For example, the PAA DOC has evolved into the adjustable ascension. Now, China copied the DOC and offered it at a lower price....now let’s say for the sake of argument PAA went out of Business because of this, guess what your not going to get more innovation from the copied DOC from China because they are not in the innovation game. So then the copied doc remains in production until demand stops and that’s it, an artisan goes out of business and it’s into another product that a Chinese/Asian manufacturer can copy. The wet shaving community has lost the main driver of innovation in this example.

That’s what happens, someone comes up with an idea, someone else copied it and sells it for 2/3 less and the main artisan goes out of business and therefore no new products get developed.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EOk_hjQU...u.be&t=180


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Copy of Captain's choice  lather bowl.  

Copy of Captain's choice  lather bowl.  

What a shame that they are copying captains choice.

DS cosmetics none the less. Well I won’t be buying their brushes.


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After many discussions with gLet, I felt that this was finally the time to try out a VB razor and I decided to order the Augustus model off of Amazon. The Emperor was frosted chrome and the numbers looked etched and I remembered that the numbers on the REX was etched and pretty hard to read sometimes. It was $4 more for the Augustus, but the markings were more readable and so I splurged.




When the razor arrived, it looked like a Fat Boy was locked in a Chocolate Shop and ate everything in it. This definitely was a massive razor as can be seen side by side with my REX Ambassador. What can also be seen is that my extra $4 was well spent as the REX numbers were hard to read in the pic, while the Augustus was not.




TTO mechanism worked smoothly and there was that ¼ turn lock similar to the Gillettes. The adjustment ring was a little tight and did not go fully to 1 (unless you tightened with force). This was not a problem as I never go lower than 2. I just have to remember to not go lower than 2 ½. Similar to the Crusader, the Emperor/Agustus has a dual comb. One side is smooth, and the other side is scalloped. This was not meant to be a differential comb like the Lutz slant razor, just a different type of comb.


Overall impression

To be honest, I am not a big fan of TTO razors as they are complex and the cap tends to be thicker than the three (or two) piece razors. When I got my Variant and Progress, I immediately sold all my Gillette adjustables and cancelled my pledge for a Model T. Out of curiosity, I checked the domed cap of the Variant with the Augustus, it appears that the Augustus was the same or even slimmer. One thing I noticed when loading a blade was that there was a lot of movement side to side where the blade tabs stick out, however I did not see this translate into the blade cutting edges being uneven.




Now for the shave. I started out on setting 3 ½ and immediately found out that this was probably the lower setting I would want. As I did the calculation in my head about it zeroing on about 1 ½ and realizing that the numbers goes to 9, this meant I would have to rethink the setting from now on. Not a major problem as often times I would start on the lower setting of an adjustable razor and end with a higher setting. The shave was very comfortable and the head thickness was not a problem. There was a noticeable difference in feel between the smooth bar and the scalloped bar, but it did not affect the shave itself. After completing my WTG pass, there was a lot of stubble left on my face, but it is something I expected when starting out with a lower setting.

ATG pass I upped to 5, and this was a very efficient setting, but still comfortable. Most of the left over stubble was cleared after that pass, but I did a complete XTG pass just to test the capabilities of the Augustus. This time I lowered the setting to 4 and finished with a very comfortable BBS.

I have to say that I was very favorably impressed with the Emperor/Augustus and would highly recommend getting one. Currently the Chinese cloners have not come up with this model and so you will own something unique

Price wise, the Emperor/Augustus falls in between the other affordable adjustable razors. At $53 and $57 it is slightly more expensive than the Parthenon/Nostalgic razors, and slight less than the Variant or Progress. Of course many will point out that the Qshave 2000 and 3000 all hover around $10, but they hold a place all by themselves, kind of like White Castle burgers.

Very nice review gvw755. Thanks!

Did you paint the location arrows on the Parker Variant with red enamel? By the way, great review. Thanks.

After many discussions with gLet, I felt that this was finally the time to try out a VB razor and I decided to order the Augustus model off of Amazon. The Emperor was frosted chrome and the numbers looked etched and I remembered that the numbers on the REX was etched and pretty hard to read sometimes. It was $4 more for the Augustus, but the markings were more readable and so I splurged.




When the razor arrived, it looked like a Fat Boy was locked in a Chocolate Shop and ate everything in it. This definitely was a massive razor as can be seen side by side with my REX Ambassador. What can also be seen is that my extra $4 was well spent as the REX numbers were hard to read in the pic, while the Augustus was not.




TTO mechanism worked smoothly and there was that ¼ turn lock similar to the Gillettes. The adjustment ring was a little tight and did not go fully to 1 (unless you tightened with force). This was not a problem as I never go lower than 2. I just have to remember to not go lower than 2 ½. Similar to the Crusader, the Emperor/Agustus has a dual comb. One side is smooth, and the other side is scalloped. This was not meant to be a differential comb like the Lutz slant razor, just a different type of comb.


Overall impression

To be honest, I am not a big fan of TTO razors as they are complex and the cap tends to be thicker than the three (or two) piece razors. When I got my Variant and Progress, I immediately sold all my Gillette adjustables and cancelled my pledge for a Model T. Out of curiosity, I checked the domed cap of the Variant with the Augustus, it appears that the Augustus was the same or even slimmer. One thing I noticed when loading a blade was that there was a lot of movement side to side where the blade tabs stick out, however I did not see this translate into the blade cutting edges being uneven.




Now for the shave. I started out on setting 3 ½ and immediately found out that this was probably the lower setting I would want. As I did the calculation in my head about it zeroing on about 1 ½ and realizing that the numbers goes to 9, this meant I would have to rethink the setting from now on. Not a major problem as often times I would start on the lower setting of an adjustable razor and end with a higher setting. The shave was very comfortable and the head thickness was not a problem. There was a noticeable difference in feel between the smooth bar and the scalloped bar, but it did not affect the shave itself. After completing my WTG pass, there was a lot of stubble left on my face, but it is something I expected when starting out with a lower setting.

ATG pass I upped to 5, and this was a very efficient setting, but still comfortable. Most of the left over stubble was cleared after that pass, but I did a complete XTG pass just to test the capabilities of the Augustus. This time I lowered the setting to 4 and finished with a very comfortable BBS.

I have to say that I was very favorably impressed with the Emperor/Augustus and would highly recommend getting one. Currently the Chinese cloners have not come up with this model and so you will own something unique

Price wise, the Emperor/Augustus falls in between the other affordable adjustable razors. At $53 and $57 it is slightly more expensive than the Parthenon/Nostalgic razors, and slight less than the Variant or Progress. Of course many will point out that the Qshave 2000 and 3000 all hover around $10, but they hold a place all by themselves, kind of like White Castle burgers.

Captainjonny The Variant is a modified razor done by North Shore Razors that was painted gold and black. All markings are red and was done by Scott over at NSR.

Three shaves in and no issues to speak of yet. Just close, smooth and comfortable shaves. The Elios Inox blade has been quite a pleasant surprise also as there have been mixed reviews with it across the forums. Not a bad thing to say about them as it still has life left after it’s third use. Hopefully the rest of the blades in the tuck are spot on and can deliver the goods. The VB Emperor Augustus is trying to make a solid point that it can hang with some of the more established and performing razors in the game. I like underdogs........

Three shaves in and no issues to speak of yet. Just close, smooth and comfortable shaves. The Elios Inox blade has been quite a pleasant surprise also as there have been mixed reviews with it across the forums. Not a bad thing to say about them as it still has life left after it’s third use. Hopefully the rest of the blades in the tuck are spot on and can deliver the goods. The VB Emperor Augustus is trying to make a solid point that it can hang with some of the more established and performing razors in the game. I like underdogs........

I haven’t tried the Elios yet. But I will grab one in my next order.

Thats a nice photo! Razor looks awesome!


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Three shaves in and no issues to speak of yet. Just close, smooth and comfortable shaves. The Elios Inox blade has been quite a pleasant surprise also as there have been mixed reviews with it across the forums. Not a bad thing to say about them as it still has life left after it’s third use. Hopefully the rest of the blades in the tuck are spot on and can deliver the goods. The VB Emperor Augustus is trying to make a solid point that it can hang with some of the more established and performing razors in the game. I like underdogs........

I haven’t tried the Elios yet. But I will grab one in my next order.

Thats a nice photo! Razor looks awesome!


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Thanks my friend. The Elios has been a pleasant surprise to be honest. $1.50 for a tuck of 10 blades. They feel smooth and sharp. Not top tier like Feathers, Black Ninjas or Kai’s but, certainly above average. If I’m not mistaken, they come from the same house as Bolzano Superinox blades which for me have performed very well in the past. As for the razor, it’s making a case for itself. Solid performer so far.....