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My Vie-Long "Museum"

A few weeks ago, Juan from Gifts & Care told me that he had seen some older unused Vie-Long brushes during a recent trip to the company. And being a big fan of Vie-Long brushes in general, I asked him if he could take a picture of them during his next visit. True to his word, he sent me a couple of shots, and offered an extremely good deal for them, so I immediately snatched up five out of around eight that he had shown me. So I thought I would post a few pix of my own for all you Vie-Long fans out there. In the first picture, from left to right, is a banded horse-hair, the middle three are horse-badger blends, and the final brush is a natural horse-hair. What I find interesting here is how some of the hairs vary in color: the horse knots seem yellower than the contemporary V-L brushes I have seen, and some of the horse-badger blends have a greyer color than contemporary versions. Is this just the effect of aging? Also interesting for me is the varying color scheme of the handles from what is currently available from V-L. And that metal-handled brush is really made from metal. Definitely the heaviest shaving brush I have held. Juan also told me that around thirty new brushes will be introduced by Vie-Long in the next week or two, so I am interested to see how these may differ from the current pack, as well as these older ones. Finally, attached are some shots of the period packaging that accompanied the brushes--for what shaving brush museum would be complete without an appreciation of the original packaging as well?
 

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Wow. VIe-longs are wonderful brushes. They don't have the "perfect" look of mass produced brushes, they've got character. Kind of like a "Spanish Simpson."
 
Very cool... It is nice to see a collection of the less common seen brushes. Lately I have been contemplating getting either a Vie Long BG2012 Silvertip or ordering a beehive M&F. Decisions, Decisions...
 
Love the handles on these. Would love to see them bring back those styles with a nice silvertip knot like the BGS2012 (which is my favorite brush right now).
 
I'm envious. What suprises me is how little the designs have changed over the years. Any idea how old these are?

I agree. The form of the designs is largely unchanged. My guess is that they are not all that old--dating back to the halcyon days of cellophane and card-stock packaging, rather than clear plastic, if that's any indication. And no Universal Product Codes... 10 to 15 years old is what Juan seemed to infer.
 
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