Safety Razor of the Month, June 2012 - Lather Catchers

That patent info is way cool, thanks!

I have never seen the skin stretcher:



-jim

gearchow said:

I have never seen the skin stretcher:

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I wouldn't be surprised if they never actually produced it. I've never seen one anywhere outside the patent drawing.

Speaking of patented things that were probably never produced, while not strictly a "lather catcher," check out this really cool adjustable travel razor design from the Kampfe brothers:



The halves of the cylindrical "case" fold down to become the handle of the razor.

that is awesome! I do have that in a Double Edge...

-jim

gearchow said:

that is awesome! I do have that in a Double Edge...

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The Bigelow-Parkin or something different?

MacDaddy said:

The Bigelow-Parkin or something different?

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B-P

-jim

gearchow said:

B-P

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I've got one of those, too. They're fun. But we digress!

Here's another of my less common lather catchers to make up for it.





It appears to be very similar to the drawing in this patent filing that is focused on the latching mechanism that holds the blade in place, so I presume it's from around that timeframe.

Well, I know I've already posted pics of this one in another thread, but since lather-catchers are the razor of the month for us, I have to include my favorite. This one started off as a Zinn GEM lather-catcher that had most of the plating worn off with a long, black wooden handle with some of the paint worn off. I still thought it was cool, just because the lather-catchers are my favorites, but a couple of months ago I was going to get Cooncat Bob to make some keys for some Psycho razors I needed to sell to get some money back on them so my wife wouldn't kill me for spending so much money on them. While I was at it, I asked Bob to make me a handle for my Zinn like some I had seen him make that was along the same design as some of the short wooden handles that you see on lather-catchers previously in this thread. Bob made this handle and had it and my Zinn head replated into what is certainly my favorite razor. In addition to its good looks thanks to Bob's craftsmanship, it shaves like a dream. The handle is so heavy that you don't have to use any pressure at all, it just kind of slides down your face making that single edge noise that we love Here it is:




On the back of the bar that holds the blade in place, it has a patent date of Nov. 5, '01, and on the back of the head, it has patent dates of Aug. 28, '00 and Nov. 05, '01. Does anyone have more information about why these were called "Zinn" GEM razors and what years they were actually made? Thanks for any info,
Cleave

Got a chance to clean up my two Star Lather Catchers and take some (not so great but not bad) photos of them.

On the left is, what I believe is the earlier of the two. If you notice on the backside of it, you can see two knobs that adjust the side retaining clips forward and back. I'm guessing that it was for different types of wedge blades and their degree of the grinds holllowness. Along the front edge, the blade stops are small and do not cover a standard SE blades extreme edges (which I found out the first time I used and came away a bloody mess, but that's a different story). If you also notice the stropping handle, you can see wear marks from, what I'm guessing, years of use.

On the right I think is a later version. The side retaining clips are mounted to the sides via a hinge and a spring arm to the front comb. It accommodates both a wedge and modern SE blade. The blade stops are bigger and cover the extreme edges of SE blades. The handle isn't hollow like its older brother but has a closed, rounded bottom.

As you can see in the side by side, the angle of the top head is different too - the later being a bit more acute vs the flatter profile of the elder razor.

cpool222 said:

Does anyone have more information about why these were called "Zinn" GEM razors and what years they were actually made?

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I can't say as I've ever heard that model referred to as a Zinn GEM. The Zinns -- Mary, Martin, and Anthony (although I'm not sure if Anthony was there at the start or joined later) -- along with August Scheuber and Jeremiah Reichard (who had worked with the Kampfe brothers on the Star) were the original founders of the Gem Cutlery Company, and they did later make a razor called the Zinn Automatic. The only thing I can think of there is that by the time your razor was made Reichard and Scheuber had left to form Yankee (later Ever-Ready). You can see that on your thumb tab they had switched from the Maltese cross to the "Z" (presumably for "Zinn") too.

As far as I can tell from the advertising of the day, the open-front "rigid frame" GEM appeared sometime during 1904 -- they even referred to it as "the 1904 model" in this ad in the World's Work from sometime between May and October of 1904:



But that model didn't have the bar like yours does. The advertising switches over almost entirely to the GEM Junior starting in 1906, but the end of 1907 is when the bar appears in that line. (The ad below from the November 9, 1907 issue of the Saturday Evening Post is the oldest ad I can turn up for it at the moment.) I don't know for sure that the bar didn't appear earlier in the standard GEM razor than it did in the GEM Junior, but it seems reasonable to think that they'd would be pretty close contemporaries.

buma said:

On the left is, what I believe is the earlier of the two.

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I would say you're right there.

buma said:

If you also notice the stropping handle, you can see wear marks from, what I'm guessing, years of use.

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I have a few that are like that too. It has to be from people using the stropping attachment to hold the blade while honing. Just stropping would take an incredibly long time to wear down metal like that, I would think.

I have seen two or three models with the "Z" on the thumb tab, I think the boxes said Zinn on them as far as I can remember, this one came without the box but looked like one I had seen in a Zinn box. I have a Zinn GEM Automatic, I'll try to make time to take pics of it tomorrow

Here are pics of the Zinn GEM Automatic. I was afraid I wouldn't be able to shave with it because of the unique little blades that were made for it, but I discovered last night by looking at old B&B posts that you can use an injector blade with it. As you can see in the pics, I put a Schick injector blade in it and got a great shave! It's aggressive, but if you use the same angle as with a Micromatic (razor head almost flat against the face) it gives a good close shave and I didn't cut myself at all. I'm thrilled that I'm going to be able to use this, as I thought it would just be for display.

Very nice. The Zinn Automatic is one that I don't have myself yet. It's also very cool that it will work with injector blades. How are they held in place? Are they deep enough to rest in front of whatever stops would have held the ears on the back corners of the Zinn blades? I'd love to see a picture or two of how the blade loads in.

Thanks for all the marvelous info and the wonderful pictures, I have never seen any of these and to be honest i never knew they existed.

Now I want one !!! I'll call it art rather than another SE so no one will ever suspect I have gone nuts

Uncle Brian said:

Thanks for all the marvelous info and the wonderful pictures, I have never seen any of these and to be honest i never knew they existed.

Now I want one !!! I'll call it art rather than another SE so no one will ever suspect I have gone nuts

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Good luck selling that plan to your wife!!

Here's an interesting tidbit: Everything you know about loading a GEM Junior Bar is wrong.

I recently saw this Cuticura Superior Safety Razor with instructions sell on eBay. Cuticura was a soap company and the Superior was essentially a white-labeled version of the GEM Junior Bar sold under their name. According to the instructions you aren't supposed to lift the bar at all to load the blade:


Also interesting is how the piercing in the blade bed, which is the same on both the GEM and Superior branded versions was designed so that it can be taken to be either a G, for GEM, or a C, for Cuticura.

Lather catchers are definitely the coolest looking razors you can get. I love mine, I only have one, but I need some more! They shave great too...

Since I'm pretty sure all the razors posted so far have been American made, how about we mix things up a bit? The German maker Friedrich Baurmann & Söhne used the same "Comfort" mark that shows up on their straight razors on this nearly carbon copy of the early Star razor:

Hi there,

looking at all of this beautiful lather catchers I also want to show you my Kampfe Bros. safety razor.

View attachment 253818

I think it won´t be my last lather catcher I have to buy.
Using this razor with a GEM PTFE blade I get excellent and comfortable shaves.

Regards,

Alexander.

Am a born again newbie, so my razor is modern. Love the style and craftsmanship of all of these. These are works of art. Thanks for sharing your photos. Cool stuff.