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Schick Razor Blade Date Codes

Maxime D., have you had any luck in dating Krona DE shaving razors? :blush:

I my quest for the truth, I found several pictures of NOS Krona and, in most case, there is a year printed behind the packagings. This information paired with the differences between the different Krona version resulted in what you can read bellow.

Shick Variations:

1. Metal Knob + Smooth doors would be between 1964-1966. Note: mblakele pointed out that the short metal knob version came before the long metal knob version.
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2. The Gold Krona '76 Executive Travel Case that was thought to be from 1976 is in fact a 1965. I have 3 of these travel cases and I was lucky enough to find one with the original booklet ''Copyright 1965'' + they all have a short metal knob.

3. Plastic Knob + Smooth doors would late 1966-1967.

4. Plastic knob + SCHICK-KRONA or SCHICK-SCHICK doors would be between 1968-1971. I found several of these with Copiright from 1968, 1969 and 1971.

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5. Plastic knob + Schick-Schick doors would be between 1972-1974. Several of these were found with Mail-in-rebate expiring in 72, 73 and 74.
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Note: The end of the production is unknown.

Sent from my iphone
 
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Good info. The last of the Krona razors were packaged and sold in the bicentennial sets? Has anyone ever determined if they were NOS or did they do a final run for that year?
 
Good info. The last of the Krona razors were packaged and sold in the bicentennial sets? Has anyone ever determined if they were NOS or did they do a final run for that year?

The sets I have seen show copyright dates in the mid-1960s, and they came with blades that also belong to the 1960s. So I think they were packaged around then. As I recall there was a multi-year run-up to the bicentennial.

Anyway to me it seems very unlikely that they would have gone back to the very earliest, short-knob, pre-patent design at a time when customers were switching to cartridges and disposables. More than anything the bicentennial sets look like a creative way of dumping unsold inventory.

Google books shows three ads for the "Executive Travel Case '76" by Tawn Limited. One is http://books.google.com/books?id=upUjAQAAMAAJ&q="tawn+limited"+executive+travel from Vogue vol.146, p.267. All the ads are from 1965, and priced at $17.50.

To put another nail in it, here is a post with photos of the booklet from that bicentennial set. Note the copyright date: 1965.

I agree with you about the 1966 Metal Knob version as I've seen some Eversharp Krona with M-66 on the packaging. My bet is that The Smooth doors + plastic knob was a transition between the previous version and the newest one, they probably had a stock of smooth doors left over and used them until the 'SCHICK KRONA' ones.

I took pictures of the Gold Krona Executive Booklet:

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There is, at least to me, a marked difference between the Schick Stainless & Super Stainless with Comfort Edge. The latter being a fantastic blade & the former less so. They did something to the coating obviously. Vydax?
 
There is, at least to me, a marked difference between the Schick Stainless & Super Stainless with Comfort Edge. The latter being a fantastic blade & the former less so. They did something to the coating obviously. Vydax?

Looks to me like Schick Stainless advertising was 1963-65 and Comfort Edge was 1966-68. No doubt they made improvements: in that era there was plenty of competition.

However I think the changes were more about process than materials. One of the Comfort Edge patents, US3203829, includes discussion of early coating problems and described a solution. I think the text is fairly readable, as patents go.

It is well-known that Teflon, for instance, is an excellent abhesive material. In other words, it has a strongly developed tendency to adhere to nothing and to prevent other things from adhering to it, a property commonly known as release or abhesiveness. Consequently, much attention has been given to ways and means of causing such fluorocarbons to bond with a metal surface to form a strongly-adhering thin film thereon. Though baking, as decribed above, has been resorted to for accomplishing this purpose, numerous difliculties have been encountered in its practical application for the production of uniformly superior razor blades at commercial production rates.

One of the difficulties encountered has been the problem of corrosion of the blade during the high temperature baking operation. Another is an apparent erratic interference with uniform bonding of the coating to the blade. Such difiiculties have resulted in relatively low production yields of nonuniform quality.

The problem is lessened to some extent by carrying out the baking step in an inert atmosphere, such as argon or nitrogen, instead of air. But even where this precaution is taken, the quality obtained and the yield of acceptable treated blades have been found insuflicient to make the process usable by a commercial producer of razor blades without incurring excessive production and quality control costs.

The present invention is predicated on our discovery that the objections and difliculties heretofore encountered in treating razor blades in accordance with the disclosures of the previously noted French patents may be overcome and a high yield of fluorocarbon-coated razor blades of improved and highly uniform quality obtained by carrying out the baking, bonding or sintering phase in a reducing atmosphere, such as an atmosphere which is predominantly hydrogen, and that especially advantageous results may be obtained where the reducing atmosphere is composed primarily of hydrogen and nitrogen, advantageously a reducing atmosphere such as results from the thermal dissociation of ammonia consisting primarily of hydrogen and nitrogen and containing a minor proportion of undecomposed ammonia.
 
I received one from a generous BB brother. This one is gray, 51.5gr, doors have no markings, bottom is metal and the big kind. Very cool razor. Will soon try w a Feather blade. 6-Mmarkings and some other numbers above
 
I use vintage blades exclusively and of the very carefully chosen carbon ones the best are the Schick Deluxe with Krona Edge. I managed to score two of the very unique slide button dispensers of fifteen. Of the stainless Schicks I prefer the Super Stainless. The one on the green and white hang cards. I find them to be the equal to Gillette's version of super stainless also known as "Spoilers" but Schicks Plus Platinum, while still better than anything modern, falls a little short of the Gillette Platinum Plus. Just my two cents worth.
 
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