Which Old one would this be..

CamSync · May 7, 2014

Whoever could shed some light on what exactly my razor is, I'd appreciate it much.

I'm pretty sure it's an Old Type however, it's Canadian made, has pinched cap corners, scalloped base-plate and no numbers or markings anywhere. The handle it came on was rubbish so I put it on a fat Tech handle.

All other OT's I have researched don't have these markings (except for Made in Can), hence, I'm a bit puzzled. It does have the thicker cap and base-plate which means it is post 1921.

Anyone with some insight, please do..

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mblakele · May 7, 2014

I would call it a Goodwill because the cap and plate have been modified to require NEW-style blades. The punched-down corners mean that it would not accept older three-hole blades.

CamSync · May 7, 2014

Ok interesting. Thx. for that !
So not all GoodWills have the square pins thru the cap ?

CamSync · May 8, 2014

Who else knows a little about this razor.. ?
It's definitely more aggressive than it looks.

Pepin · May 8, 2014

Which Old one......

Sounds like an opening for one of H. P. Lovecrafts books.

MacDaddy · May 8, 2014

Strictly speaking, I wouldn't call it a Goodwill. It's more of an Old Type/Goodwill hybrid, or a partially "Goodwilled" Old Type. The corner pins alone wouldn't have prevented someone from just making a narrower three-holed blade and still using it successfully because the cap studs would align it properly and lock the two pieces of the head together.

The genius of the Goodwill design was that the cap and guard plate don't positively lock into each other at all, but rather each piece locks into features in the blade that were patent protected. Without a blade in a Goodwill head there is a huge amount of slop, but as soon as you pop a blade in it squares right up. Competitors at the time wouldn't have been able to make a blade that had both the square corner knockouts and the interior pin knockouts without infringing on Gillette's patents. As I see it, the Goodwill is really the first time Gillette pulled together all the elements of the "razors and blades" business strategy as we know it today.

We've seen a few of these Canadian hybrids here before. Best guess is that they were quick retrofits of existing Old Type heads that the factory had in stock, and they were probably made prior to the plant getting their Goodwill process completely sorted out. I doubt very much that that Tech handle you've got with it is original to the head, but these things happen over the decades.

BSAGuy · May 8, 2014

Pretty cool and a new razor to me. Thanks MacDaddy for the always excellent commentary.

mblakele · May 8, 2014

MacDaddy said:
Strictly speaking, I wouldn't call it a Goodwill. It's more of an Old Type/Goodwill hybrid, or a partially "Goodwilled" Old Type. The corner pins alone wouldn't have prevented someone from just making a narrower three-holed blade and still using it successfully because the cap studs would align it properly and lock the two pieces of the head together.

The genius of the Goodwill design was that the cap and guard plate don't positively lock into each other at all, but rather each piece locks into features in the blade that were patent protected. Without a blade in a Goodwill head there is a huge amount of slop, but as soon as you pop a blade in it squares right up. Competitors at the time wouldn't have been able to make a blade that had both the square corner knockouts and the interior pin knockouts without infringing on Gillette's patents. As I see it, the Goodwill is really the first time Gillette pulled together all the elements of the "razors and blades" business strategy as we know it today.

We've seen a few of these Canadian hybrids here before. Best guess is that they were quick retrofits of existing Old Type heads that the factory had in stock, and they were probably made prior to the plant getting their Goodwill process completely sorted out. I doubt very much that that Tech handle you've got with it is original to the head, but these things happen over the decades.

CamSync said he changed the handle out himself.

No serious dispute from me on the Goodwill nomenclature: I see it in shades of grey, and I see your point.

MacDaddy · May 8, 2014

mblakele said:
CamSync said he changed the handle out himself.

No serious dispute from me on the Goodwill nomenclature: I see it in shades of grey, and I see your point.

D'oh! You're right I must've just skipped over that here on my phone. And you're right, it is more of a continuum than a black or white thing. With the Goodwills having been based on both the Old Type and NEW heads, they're not really, properly, a generation of razor in and of themselves. It's more those features that define them. So what you call something that has some but not all of the Goodwill features is somewhat fuzzy.

CamSync · May 8, 2014

Very informative responses here fellas, Thx. much!

So my next question is;
Is this razor still considered to have the 102A stlye head, or would it have
a Goodwill based head ?
And that leads me to ask, is there any difference phyisically and shave-wise between
a 102A and Goodwill head ?

MacDaddy · May 8, 2014

There really isn't one particular Goodwill head. In most places Goodwills were built with either the Old Type 102A or long-comb NEW head parts. There were also some Goodwills produced in South America that were built off the short-comb NEW. In my experience the Goodwills all shave like the razors that they were built from. Just to use them, I can't tell the difference in feel, which makes sense, really, since the difference is entirely about how the razor goes together and not at all about changing its fundamental characteristics.

CamSync · May 8, 2014

Thats a beautiful answer ! ^^

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