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Hello men, I acquired these Vintage Gillette Stainless Steel blades about 9 or 10 months ago, and am just now getting around to investigating them. I'm wondering if these are the famous "Spoilers" of the 1960's? I tried to find a date code on the one I opened, but it only has a #3 on the right side of the blade. It almost looks as if the letter code was not fully inked or something, because only a small hash mark can be seen opposite the 3. Whatever the scoop, I see no letter for the date code on this blade, only a small Mark. I am reluctant to open a bunch of them till I get to one with a letter code, because I don't want a bunch of loose blades here. So if anyone can tell me if these are those famous "Spoilers", without the dispensers, please let me know. And I was wondering these might have been made? I can't tell, but maybe someone will see something I'm not. Here's some photos-
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Have a good day men.
 
The spoilers are those that have printed or sticked "The spoiler"... They were made in 1974, 1975,1979 and 1982 according to mr-razor site. Look here, you will find spoilers here.

I cant find yours there? When are they made?
 
The date code was not completely printed on the blade. The number 3 is on the right side of the blade, but where the letter should be there is only a small hash mark. I can only guess at what the letter would be, but due to the angle of the mark, I believe the letter is a "Y". I just recently looked up the patent number, and it was filed in 1963.
 
The date code was not completely printed on the blade. The number 3 is on the right side of the blade, but where the letter should be there is only a small hash mark. I can only guess at what the letter would be, but due to the angle of the mark, I believe the letter is a "Y". I just recently looked up the patent number, and it was filed in 1963.

Correction: US3071856 was issued in 1963. It was filed in 1959. That was the basic patent for PTFE-coated blades, and so very important historically. After a court fight it meant that Wilkinson and other blade makers had to pay royalties to Gillette, even though Wilkinson was the first to market PTFE-coated stainless steel blades. But I digress.

Anyway that means we can rule out Y=1953: too early for stainless or that patent number. However I think Y=1978 is too late for those graphics and text style.

How about something like K=1965 instead? That would be pre-spoiler, and the quality may be spotty. Achim shows a similar looking package in metal: note the triangle, which resembles the one on your blade package.



By Y=1978 things were different: note the G-Globe logo and the style of the word "Gillette".

 
How about something like K=1965 instead? That would be pre-spoiler, and the quality may be spotty. Achim shows a similar looking package in metal: note the triangle, which resembles the one on your blade package.

Yes, they are probably K and they are pre-Spoiler. Gillette announced that they had perfected the polymer coating in 1966. Therefore, the Super Stainless that was introduced in 1966 is the Spoiler. Achim has the Super Silver pictured for 1966, and that is the European equivalent. As Turtle pointed out in another post, 'the Spoiler' was trademarked in the latter part of 1967. Of course, that moniker applies to the earliest version of the Super Stainless, as long as they were made in South Boston.
 
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Hello men, I acquired these Vintage Gillette Stainless Steel blades about 9 or 10 months ago, and am just now getting around to investigating them. I'm wondering if these are the famous "Spoilers" of the 1960's? I tried to find a date code on the one I opened, but it only has a #3 on the right side of the blade. It almost looks as if the letter code was not fully inked or something, because only a small hash mark can be seen opposite the 3. Whatever the scoop, I see no letter for the date code on this blade, only a small Mark. I am reluctant to open a bunch of them till I get to one with a letter code, because I don't want a bunch of loose blades here. So if anyone can tell me if these are those famous "Spoilers", without the dispensers, please let me know. And I was wondering these might have been made? I can't tell, but maybe someone will see something I'm not. Here's some photos-

View attachment 560430
Have a good day men.

Correction: US3071856 was issued in 1963. It was filed in 1959. That was the basic patent for PTFE-coated blades, and so very important historically. After a court fight it meant that Wilkinson and other blade makers had to pay royalties to Gillette, even though Wilkinson was the first to market PTFE-coated stainless steel blades. But I digress.

Anyway that means we can rule out Y=1953: too early for stainless or that patent number. However I think Y=1978 is too late for those graphics and text style.

How about something like K=1965 instead? That would be pre-spoiler, and the quality may be spotty. Achim shows a similar looking package in metal: note the triangle, which resembles the one on your blade package.



By Y=1978 things were different: note the G-Globe logo and the style of the word "Gillette".



Those blades have wax spots on them. I have been under the impression that is a fairly "recent" manufacturing process, I certainly don't recall them on blades I used in the 70s. But I always used blades that were contained in a dispenser. When did they start using the 4 wax spots?

-jim
 
Those blades have wax spots on them. I have been under the impression that is a fairly "recent" manufacturing process, I certainly don't recall them on blades I used in the 70s. But I always used blades that were contained in a dispenser. When did they start using the 4 wax spots?

In England they were doing this by 1956: http://badgerandblade.com/vb/showth...ng-of-Gillette-Razors-and-Razor-Blades-(1956)

In the blade department each blade is wrapped by high speed wrapping machines and anchored with four spots of grease to the inside wrapper to prevent the edges from rubbing against the covering and being damaged by coming in contact with the paper.

(I suppose someone may say that "grease" is not wax. But because these spots are supposed to anchor the blade, I think the difference is linguistic variation or specialist vocabulary. Anyway gents here call it "glue" about half the time.)

The 1938 version of that article described a similar wrapping process, without mentioning those spots. That may not tell us anything, though: the spots might not have been adopted yet, or the author might have thought they were unimportant.

It would be interesting if we could find a historical source complaining about newfangled blobs of gunk on his Gillette blades. I went looking for something like that in google books, but came up dry.
 
Thanks Mike! I didn't see that thread, what a great read. As I was reading it, I could envision a "How It's Made" in my head. That would be a nice addition to the wiki, under DE Blade History?

And that is why I never saw the spots - I never used paper wrapped blades till recently.

It would be interesting if we could find a historical source complaining about newfangled blobs of gunk on his Gillette blades. I went looking for something like that in google books, but came up dry.

It would have been personal correspondence in letter mailed to Gillette... "Dear Sirs, I wish to bring to your attention..."

-jim
 
Hello Collectors, I have a few vintage blades but I don't actively collect them. I did buy a 10 blade tuck of Gillette thins today. Black and red and I guess the smaller lettering for the ,THIN.. My question is. Are these common and usable? The cardboard in in good condition minus a little ware on the corners
 
Hello Freebird0064, I think the Gillette Red and Black Thin blades are likely usable. I use them all the time. Just check to make sure the cutting edges are not rusted or deteriorated in any way. You will be amazed at the shave you will get from them. If your other vintage blades are in wrappers and unused as far as you can tell, they would be of use to most collectors. I have found the shave of most non Gillette vintage blades to be sub par. You might not want to shave with one. I hope this input helps.
 
Yes this helps. As these are the only vintage blades that I have multiples of. I'll save one and use the rest.
I only paid $3.95 for the tuck at an Antique Mall. So they are less expensive than some of the modern blades.
 
I bought at a flea market today this blades. I would like to know the year of production. It seems to me, is the end of the seventies - early eighties.
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