Old-Time NOS Blades

I went to an antique show yesterday. Came home with about 200 NOS DE blades, a Gillette Old Style, and a Stahly Live Blade.

Here's the blade tally:

(7) Gillette Thin Blades, in 10-blade box

(65) indiv. wrapped Berkeley blades

(22) 4-blade packs of Sheer Hair Spring Steel blades

(1) multi-pack of Ranger double edge Blades - cellophane-wrapped

(1) Gillette Blue Blade 5-blade pack box w/ (1) blade

(2) 5-packs of Star Double Edge Blades

(3) 5-packs of SOS Double Edged BLADES (one has five blades, one has four, and one contains six or eight discards - standard DE's, an injector or two, and one old, old three-hole blade)

(2) indiv. wrapped blades marked SOS Double Edged BLADE

(2) indiv. wrapped PAL HOLLOW GROUND blades

(4) indiv. wrapped non-branded blades labeled "FINEST QUALITY, DOUBLE EDGE, SURGICAL STEEL, KEENEST EDGES"

Now to figure out whether any of these are worth anything. If not, they'll still look cool sitting in my display case.

Generosity Revisited

I've been posting on the SMF forum lately about just how rough my initial experience with the Feather blades was. This was picked by a most generous member who offered to send me a Gillette Super Speed Blue Tip, free and clear!

I didn't understand the free and clear at first, but he assured me he's a flea market hound like I am. He picks up razors all the time, cleans them, and forwards them on to other DE shavers like myself.

Well, the Blue Tip arrived the other day and what to my wondering eyes should appear? Nothing but a date code of A-3! That's 1955, third quarter (July-August-September). My birthday is September 1, 1955.

This gentleman had sent me the gift of a Birthday Razor!

Well, I loaded it up with a Feather and had my first Blue Tip shave yesterday. Indeed, very mild. And I came away thinking that the Feather-Blue Tip combination is a worthy one.

More Old Stuff

Found these in a local antique store yesterday. First up, a bakelite handled Gillette Tech. It's in fairly nice condition, except for one chip in the base of the handle. It would make a pretty good daily shaver.



The same trip also yielded this nice old shaving mug. Nothing fancy, just a good solid mug about 100 years old, give or take.

Old Style Safety Razor

Had a close brush with a relapse of Acquisition Disorder yesterday. Lisa and I decided to run into the antiquing district of the suburb where she grew up. We just wanted to do a little quick shopping - to see what was fresh in the shops there.

We stumbled on one shop just off the main street that's been there for about six years. We'd never seen it before! At least we had never recognized it for what it was. I asked the guy if he had any shaving gear and he was able to dig up an old Gillette Old Style Safety Razor.



In an act that was generosity itself, he GAVE it to me!

Unfortunately, the handle is pretty badly split, as you can see in the photo above. The handle is so loose it falls off from its own weight. And there's a smaller split on the other side, coming up from the base end of the handle tube.

Not very usable in this condition.

I'll clean it up anyway, and test shave with it, using a handle from a spare Tech that I have. If it shaves well, I'll see about fixing it. I'll either glue the handle or check with my machinist buddy Nick about machining a new handle.

If it ends up being a good shaver, it'd be fun to have a nice fat handle that's easy to grip. I have visions of beautiful, high profile barber pole knurling.