The Fifth Blade.(razors)

In the boom years, it seemed, everyone collected something. Cohiba cigars or Koons's inflatable flowers, vintage claret or worthless stock. In an economy of excess, money was free to flow into artifacts, cultural bullion. Bill Gates collected Leonardo codices, and Ronald Lauder collected old Eastern European synagogues. I collected razors.

It was an inadvertent collection, like Mrs. Madoff 's collection of real estate, a collection cued absent-mindedly by abundance. But many men I've spoken to seem to have done the same thing, waking up after fifteen years and finding themselves to be Fricks or Morgans of the two- and three- and four- and five-blade shaver. It ...