The President is not all Rhodium

Hi Guys,

Some of you may have followed my posts on proving that many of the 'Rhodium' razors are not as they seem to be advertised by Gillette.

The latest one out of my nickel stripping tank is the lovely President. The clue that the head wasn't actually Rhodium plated was the fact that is was very dull and worn through to the brass in many places, whereas the handle was unmarked.

As I suspected, once out of the nickel stripping tank, the head was totally stripped whilst the handle was untouched. So - Handle is Rhodium and head, doors etc is good old nickel. I have never seen any ads for the President, so I don't know if Gillette advertised it like some of the English Aristocrats as being 'Rhodium Plated'

Here's the razor stripped and with the head replated and the handle lightly polished.

Interesting...my president is absolutely minty except for a water stain on one of the barn doors...I have only seem this with my nickel plated razors and never on a rhodium razor...had me baffled till this post...thank you

Huh, I had read somewhere that the only US manufactured Rhodium Gillette was the Executive. So my President is partially so?

Thanks for that info. It looks very close to being Rhodium plated though.

Thanks

New nickel is hard to tell from Rhodium although Rhodium does have more of a whitish sheen to it.

Merkur25 said:

Thanks for that info. It looks very close to being Rhodium plated though.

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That's a beautiful razor.

Strange form of naming that Gillette adopted - there is only one 'President' (or a company or country) and more than one 'executive' so I'd have thought that the higher grade razor would be called the 'President' and be all Rhodium and the lesser razor, the 'Executive' and part Rhodium

garyg said:

Huh, I had read somewhere that the only US manufactured Rhodium Gillette was the Executive. So my President is partially so?

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Indeed,

I suppose that I'll have to give it a try..

kingfisher said:

That's a beautiful razor.

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nice job ! what did you polish the handle with,fitz ?

garyg said:

Huh, I had read somewhere that the only US manufactured Rhodium Gillette was the Executive. So my President is partially so?

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+1 I remember a thread from last year, and the conclusion was that the president was not Rhodium plated, but it was new nickel, as onotoman mentioned.

Either way, is a beautiful razor.

garyg said:

Huh, I had read somewhere that the only US manufactured Rhodium Gillette was the Executive. So my President is partially so?

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+1 too. Had no idea the President had any rhodium, whether fully or partially. Only U.S. Gillette I knew about that is rhodium plated is the 1950 Executive.

President handle is definitely Rhodium, if it were Nickel it would have come off in the nickel stripping solution.

GentsInstinct said:

+1 too. Had no idea the President had any rhodium, whether fully or partially. Only U.S. Gillette I knew about that is rhodium plated is the 1950 Executive.

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The Rhodium plating on the handle just needed a gentle brushing with a brass wire brush to remove the black deposits from the nickel stripping tank - then it looks as good as new.

malocchio said:

nice job ! what did you polish the handle with,fitz ?

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Fascinating info, thanks for sharing.

I've updated the wiki pages for the President and for the 1950s Executive to reflect this find. Thanks again for the information.