I found a few old Gillette's today

Around and about today and hit a few antique stores. The very last one we hit, I picked up three old Gillette's. Sorry for the craptacular pics, I couldn't find my camera and had to use my daughter's. -- EDIT: found my camera, snapped these before the batteries puked.







Two, I think I've identified and the third I'm baffled by.
The Tech, has a stamp of M 8 on the underside of the head (1942?).
The Superspeed (If I got that right) was made in England, with Brit. Pat. No's of 430,030. The blue blade packet was opened and has a combination of blue's and "Minora" patent 1935 and made in Canada blades.

The third I'm baffled by. There's geometric etching around where the posts come through the top. It looks more like brass than gold. I'd like to figure out how to get rid of that tarnish - any advice? On the underside, I could only find "patented 1926 1929 1931" and it's made in Canada.

Oh... I also picked up some Columbian razor blades "Selecta". Teal package, gold lettering, 3 blades in a cardboard wrapper. Blades are stamped "Selecta" above the slot and "solingen" below. German manufactured and rebranded? I'll edit this and add pics later. If I find my camera tomorrow night, I'll clean up the photos.

They were pretty cheap over all, as far as razor finds go, anything interesting here?

My wife thinks they're pretty cool and the superspeed in the box, she bought for me as a valentine's present. RAD co-dependency. I can live with that.

Hi, the third one is a Goodwill razor, they were the transitional razor Gillette was making while they were changing over from the three-hole blades to the bar type. They were given away for free when someone bought a new pack of blades, so unfortunately they were made rather cheaply. It's rather tough to clean them because the gold paint wears off really easily.

It's hard to tell from the picture, but it looks like the superspeed may be a Rocket, which would be good news because they are rarer and usually go for the big bucks on ebay.

I tried going to an antique/junk store.

I asked if they had double-edge/safety razors.

They looked at me like I was crazy.

I gave up and started going crazy buying razors on ebay.

this month's list:

'55 super speed
red tip super speed
another super spped
2 slim adjustables
2 lady gillette's
1 gold aristocrat

I still need to get a blue tip SS and a black tip SS.

guitarslinger said:

I tried going to an antique/junk store.

I asked if they had double-edge/safety razors.

They looked at me like I was crazy.

I gave up and started going crazy buying razors on ebay.

this month's list:

'55 super speed
red tip super speed
another super spped
2 slim adjustables
2 lady gillette's
1 gold aristocrat

I still need to get a blue tip SS and a black tip SS.

Click to expand...

I hit about 5 stores and came up with nothing. It was at the last store I found some stuff. When I asked about razors and safety razors, one of the other stores said "No razors, given the location and all".

I'm thinking estate auctions might be a better bet.

Going to try a flea market next.

guitarslinger said:

They looked at me like I was crazy.

Click to expand...

I've seen the same look. Depends on who's manning the store. I believe some of them think we are Sweeny Todd wannabees.

c white said:

Hi, the third one is a Goodwill razor, they were the transitional razor Gillette was making while they were changing over from the three-hole blades to the bar type. They were given away for free when someone bought a new pack of blades, so unfortunately they were made rather cheaply. It's rather tough to clean them because the gold paint wears off really easily.

It's hard to tell from the picture, but it looks like the superspeed may be a Rocket, which would be good news because they are rarer and usually go for the big bucks on ebay.

Click to expand...

Thanks for the tip. I was able to do some more searches on Gillette Rockets and found some better pictures and other discussion. Looks like I scored an Aristocrat Junior.

http://www.shavemyface.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=12750&highlight=rocket

Other thread here:
http://www.badgerandblade.com/vb/showthread.php?t=4829

part way down the thread there's a comparison between a Rocket and an Aristocrat Junior. The box says "Gillette" but made in the USA. I'm thinking that this isn't the original case for the razor.

I found some threads about cleaning these guys up so, going to tackle that tonight.