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Captain CS by Lord, first impressions

The Captain CS blades appear to have the same color/coating on them as some Gillette Thins I have from 1963. For me they're good for one good shave, then it's time to toss 'em.
 
A little update on the Captain; I could not find anything on the web nor on the company's website and actually that should have lead me to this sooner but I finally did dig up some information about them. And of all places it was under my nose all the time at Lord's website after all. Check this out;

http://www.razorslord.com/about/

When you follow 'company history' on the 'agenda' you can find something of interest at 1986;

"The company stopped producing the carbon blades and......." so these seem to be NOS after all; at least 26 years old!

At 'products history' you can find some pics of Captains previous to 1986; though the graphics are not entirely identical (I guess mine are of the latest production) there can be no mistake.

I always thought that those guys hunting for their fav NOS blades were a bit weird; there is still so much nice stuff around so why bother?
Now I am in that camp myself all of a sudden and just finished a nice shave with a Captain. I am not ready yet to call it my overall nicest blade but it is high in my top-2 for sure!
 
I always thought that those guys hunting for their fav NOS blades were a bit weird; there is still so much nice stuff around so why bother?
Now I am in that camp myself all of a sudden and just finished a nice shave with a Captain. I am not ready yet to call it my overall nicest blade but it is high in my top-2 for sure!

I have been saving one that is probably going to get used soon. My plan was to procure more before using it - but seeing as they are NOS I think I will savor the shave and move on.

It's really a shame because I would buy a decent amount of these bad-boys based on the few that I received.
 
I have been saving one that is probably going to get used soon. My plan was to procure more before using it - but seeing as they are NOS I think I will savor the shave and move on.

It's really a shame because I would buy a decent amount of these bad-boys based on the few that I received.

Well, there is still a huge pile of these waiting to be used in central Europe and I secured my piece of the cake recently but you can forget trying to obtain them through the usual channels, that is for sure.
 
RECTIFICATION!!!

There I was, thinking to be Sherlock Holmes himself.....

"The company stopped producing the carbon blades and......." so these seem to be NOS after all; at least 26 years old!

At 'products history' you can find some pics of Captains previous to 1986; though the graphics are not entirely identical (I guess mine are of the latest production) there can be no mistake.


But I was wrong! Oh, the information about old carbon steel blades is real enough but my Captains are not from 1986 but from 2011 so says my man in Budapest (thanks Dániel). There was one thing that gave it away, and rather obvious as well, but I missed it.

Above the barcode (not impossible in '86) there is in bold print: www.lordshave.com ..... Ouch! :blush:

So the mystery continues.
 
I am reviving this thread to report my experience with a sample of Captain CS blades from talibeard. Thanks for the opportunity to try these.

My first shave went well. The edge was sharp enough to handle the most troublesome areas of my beard. After three careful passes I had a DFS with no irritation. The next few shaves will show how long that performance lasts.

TGN Finest XH Fan 22-mm x 46-mm
Erasmic stick (vintage NOS, in red bakelite holder)
BRW Bull Mastiff short-comb NEW
Captain CS (1)
Pinaud Clubman
 
I am glad the blades arrived in good order mblakele and thanks for sharing your thoughts on them. I am looking forward to your next report!
 
The second shave was excellent, perhaps marginally less close than yesterday. I used the same setup except for the brush, which was a Simpson X2L Colonel.
 
The only Lord blade that I shaved with was the Lord Super Stainless that came bundled with my Ikon OSS. The blade was good, didn't lack sharpness. How does the Captain SC compare to them? Lord makes a good variety of blades.
 
I have not tried the Lord SS. I have some Lord platinums, though. They are good shavers. So far I think the Captain CS is better, but I have not used a Lord platinum for a while. Maybe I should use one of those next, as a comparison.
 
The only Lord blade that I shaved with was the Lord Super Stainless that came bundled with my Ikon OSS. The blade was good, didn't lack sharpness. How does the Captain SC compare to them? Lord makes a good variety of blades.

The Lord SS used to be my fav blade till, almost by accident, I came across these Captains and now they are #1, at least in some of my razors. The Captain has a less shallow bevel, giving you less cutting angles to choose from; when you are off the blade will hardly cut. The main advantage of the carbon steel Captain is that it copes with the difficult spots in my neck like no other; I get the closest shaves there while it leaves my skin in top condition. So the SS shaves a tad closer on my face and the Captain shaves my neck significantly closer without causing any irritation.

The SS is for me good for 3 shaves and the Captain, depending on the razor, for 7-12 shaves. Funny thing is that the Captain is no good for me in the Mühle/EJ 89-series but good to great in the Merkur 3-piece razors and the Lord Lp1822 and fabulous in my vintage Gladweg.
 
I saw Lord's website and didn't found any reference to the Captain SC blades. Do you think this has become NOS? The soccer player in the paper wrap does ring my bell regarding their Racer blades... I wonder if this is an evolution.
 
I saw Lord's website and didn't found any reference to the Captain SC blades. Do you think this has become NOS? The soccer player in the paper wrap does ring my bell regarding their Racer blades... I wonder if this is an evolution.

See above in post #102 and 105; I thought they were NOS too but was proven wrong.
 
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I like a good mystery, especially when it involves shaving. These blades are quite mysterious.

The UPC for the Captains (6222001555028) is completely unknown to both google and bing as I write. According to whois, lordshave.com was registered 2004-01-05. That gives us the earliest possible date for this batch of Captains: only nine years ago. There are a number of packaging differences when compared to my Lord PC blades, which I ordered over a year ago. These differences tend to make me think that the Captains are a little older still. The Lord PC package looks more modern, with its hologram strip and the ">" quiet zone next to a shorter UPC. One of the FAX numbers on the PC package matches the Captain, but there is a second fax number too. The telephone number is gone. Going to http://www.razorslord.com/contact/ and selecting Egypt lists yet a different set of numbers, but overlapping both packages.



The numbers just above the UPC are somewhat different between the two packages: "D.8843 Pr.03/0014 P.423/09" for PC and "D.T.N.BC8348/02 Pr.03/0014 P.640/07" for Captain. I wonder what they mean?

I also worked on the script on the front of the Captain package. I have zero Arabic, but the first word seems to be a block-letter form of كابتن. That matches wikipedia http://ar.wikipedia.org/wiki/كابتن_(كرة_قدم) - the Arabic version of http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Captain_(association_football). At first I thought the smaller writing underneath would be "extra quality", but it seems to match what google translate gave me for "razor blade": موس.

Unfortunately google wants to correct كابتن موس to something like Captain Moussa, or moss, or mouse. So I did not get anywhere new with that. But I can show you where the Lord factory sits: http://wikimapia.org/6277016/LORD-precision-industries-SAE

What about the wayback machine? http://web.archive.org/web/20040611215809*/http://www.lordshave.com/products/LORD.asp instead goes back to 2004, but the captures I examined listed the same four brands: Lord, BigBen, Racer, and Asco. At http://web.archive.org/web/20060708221842*/http://www.razorslord.com/Brands/ there is nothing earlier than 2006, which shows the same four brands in a different order: Lord, Asco, Big Ben, and Racer. In 2007 they added Shark, SilverStar, Crown, and Rainbow. Apparently the page has not changed since 2007, so possibly Captains are newer and the web site is out of date. Anyway it seems that the Captain branding has never been mentioned online.

With all this in mind, I wonder if Captain is (or was) a private label, perhaps for a chain of retail stores somewhere? There would be little reason to advertise that.

EDIT: I took a second look at the timeline and found this. The red label is clearly an older version of the Captain, labelled 1978. The blades we are talking about here are much newer, of course.

 
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That is quite a search you put up there mblakele! Unfortunately you didn't get much further with this mysterious blade either. The Hungarian importer I got them from thinks they are intended for an African or Arab market but doesn't have specific information either.

He claims they are made in '10 or '11 and both PTFE and some lacquers used on the blade make it a state of the art modern carbon steel blade. I have no reason to doubt him as all of his other info has been proven correct.

There is something about Lord's website that might contain more unaccessible (to us) information; on the top-right of their home-page there is a Egyptian flag, next to a European one, and clicking on it gives an error code :)403 forbidden). Maybe when you are a direct customer some secrets are disclosed there.

Captain is an old Lord brand (till 1986) that has been revived it seems but AFAIK it could be just a one-time batch as well as a new productionline simply intended for a specific market. Maybe it was a try-out and it didn't succeed or succes still has to come.
 
this is a very good read, great posts gents.

I hope to try one of these blades soon, ill ask some friends in egypt if they can locate some for me!

Ive been turned on to lord blades ever since my great experience with shark ss
 
The third shave went well, but I detected some tugging and the shave was not as close. So far I have not done anything to protect this first blade, and it is starting to show rust. This is my first carbon steel blade, and my usual clean-up procedure is minimal: rinse the razor and set it on a cloth to dry.

Are others doing anything to prevent rust? If so, what is your procedure?
 
this is a very good read, great posts gents.

I hope to try one of these blades soon, ill ask some friends in egypt if they can locate some for me!

Ive been turned on to lord blades ever since my great experience with shark ss

Let us hear how that works out; I wonder if they are for sale at Egyptian streets!

The third shave went well, but I detected some tugging and the shave was not as close. So far I have not done anything to protect this first blade, and it is starting to show rust. This is my first carbon steel blade, and my usual clean-up procedure is minimal: rinse the razor and set it on a cloth to dry.

Are others doing anything to prevent rust? If so, what is your procedure?

Frankly I don't, with shaving every other day and getting up to 12 shaves out of a Captain the worst I ever detected after changing the blade was some light discoloration; some stainless blades look worse after 3 shaves. What you could try is rinsing the blade with alcohol after the shave, that will replace the water, or take it out and pat it dry. Do you live near the ocean or other salt water? Rust might really influence the quality of the shave I guess.

Some tugging is rather normal for a carbon steel blade, giving the blade a bit more time to cut (=shaving slower) does help. For some reason tugging with a carbon steel blade is much more friendly for the skin as with a stainless blade, just don't ask me why. Depending on the razor my first 4-6 shaves with a Captain are pretty constant and after that there is more tugging and the results are slightly less but the end of a blade is there when it starts to give problems on the 2 trouble spots in my neck and strangely enough those spots can have another 3-6 shaves with it.
 
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