Vintage blade collectors club

Found this interesting addition yesterday when out searching for new to me collectibles. As per the instruction sheet they have a tool to open the razor head and remove and insert new blade. Being a big fan of Injectors I was happy to find this.

try a stamp album. should do the task.
Brian

Here is my new purchase - NOS Quick blades. Made by Carl Rader (Germany), seller say its about 1960-1970, but the style of writing on the blade and overall design looks much older, I would even quess 1930-1940. Any information on these would be much appreciated:

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Rotsiegel Wellen-Klinge from Germany. I showed some pictures before, but I think they belong in this thread.

While "Rotsiegel" is the company's name, "Wellen" is the German word for "waves" and "Klinge" stands for "blade".
If you take a closer look, you can see that it isn't just flat like other blades, there are really "Wellen" on both sides.
The drawing on the upper left package shows the postition / direction of the waves.

I've never seen anything like this before.
Unfortunately, I don't know very much else about them, except that my father must have kept them for years.

Gytis said:

Here is my new purchase - NOS Quick blades. Made by Carl Rader (Germany), seller say its about 1960-1970, but the style of writing on the blade and overall design looks much older, I would even quess 1930-1940. Any information on these would be much appreciated:

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Unfortunately, my info only covers American made blades. Nice pickup though. Have you tried one?

Extrawurst said:

Rotsiegel Wellen-Klinge from Germany. I showed some pictures before, but I think they belong in this thread.

While "Rotsiegel" is the company's name, "Wellen" is the German word for "waves" and "Klinge" stands for "blade".
If you take a closer look, you can see that it isn't just flat like other blades, there are really "Wellen" on both sides.
The drawing on the upper left package shows the postition / direction of the waves.

I've never seen something like this before.
Unfortunately, I don't know very much else about them, except that my father must have kept them for years.

Click to expand...

If you look at the blade edge on, do the indentations transmit to the edge? Pretty neat!

-jim

@gearchow: The edges are straight, the waves are only in the area below. Maybe for better stiffness?

P.S. It seems that they couldn't figure out whether it's "Rotsiegel" or "Rot-Siegel", or "Wellenklinge" or "Wellen-Klinge". Maybe a communication problem between marketing and production.

[MENTION=26615]gearchow[/MENTION] : No, I have not tried one yet, but will do after I finish my current Sputnik blade though that can take some time as it is on shave #32 now. I can say these old blades are very thin and very flexible, I hope they are just fine. Will let all know how it goes.

Here's a few interesting tucks of blades-
Front side


Back side


The first tuck is three hole blades that I thought might fit my Wardonia razor due to the elongated holes where the guide pins go, but alas, they don't fit it.
The next tuck of blades are of a type of PAL blades I have never seen before. The box says "Leather Stropped". They are made in Canada. Perhaps that is why they are unfamiliar to me.
The last box is a French tuck of blades from the Vietnam war era. I have seen these somewhere before, but I don't remember much about them.
The three hole blades came with a Single Ring I got quite awhile ago, the PAL blades were a gift from a friend in Canada, and the Lucky blades were part of a purchase I made from France. I just wanted to share these photos to add to the vintage blade thread, and also I was curious to know if anyone was familiar with those PAL blades. Thanks for reading this post, and have a great night.

Hello everyone, today's mail brought me a 100 lot of Gillette Blue Blades that I scored on last Sunday. According to the date code, I think these were produced in 1948. The best Gillette Blue Blades I ever shaved with were made in the 1940's. Here's some photos.






The blade I inspected looks perfect. I hope they all look that way. Thanks for your interest, have a great day!

I picked these up at an antique shop a few week ago, they have 2184 on them. Does that mean they were made in 1929?

Mlee said:

I picked these up at an antique shop a few week ago, they have 2184 on them. Does that mean they were made in 1929?


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Yes, those blades are from 1929. In fact, they were produced between March 31 and April 6 of 1929. We know that because of the way Gillette date coded its blades in the 1920's. It really was a code. Here is the explanation from Phillip Krumholtz's book, "Collector's Guide to American Razor Blades":

"Three Hole Blades, 1925-1929 -- The four-digit code was established. First digit is decade [yours signifies the 20s]. The right hand digit of the sum of the second and third digit is year of decade [yours add up to 9, so it's '29], second and fourth digit, read as a two digit number, is week of year." Your second and fourth are 14, so it was the 14th week of 1929. That was March 31 to April 6.

Pretty cool, huh?

Komboloi said:

Yes, those blades are from 1929. In fact, they were produced between March 31 and April 6 of 1929. We know that because of the way Gillette date coded its blades in the 1920's. It really was a code. Here is the explanation from Phillip Krumholtz's book, "Collector's Guide to American Razor Blades":

"Three Hole Blades, 1925-1929 -- The four-digit code was established. First digit is decade [yours signifies the 20s]. The right hand digit of the sum of the second and third digit is year of decade [yours add up to 9, so it's '29], second and fourth digit, read as a two digit number, is week of year." Your second and fourth are 14, so it was the 14th week of 1929. That was March 31 to April 6.

Pretty cool, huh?

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Thanks for the information, I knew it was something like that. I'd seen the code hear somewhere but forgot it also told the week it was made. That's a pretty elaborate code for a razor blade. A decoder ring would be helpful.

Found these at a flea market yesterday. It looks like all the blades were in it, it has 54, 3 bundles of 18. Is there any way of knowing how old they are?

Possible 1903/04 early production blade. Note no "Pat date" (Unopened).

Legion said:

stamp album. Also, you can get Mylar sleeves to go in binders, the type coin and medal collectors use.

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I ordered some cigarette card pages. The pockets seem to be a better size than baseball card pages.

Fas est et ab hoste docari

Legion said:

Let's get this one into the thread, right out of the gate.

A very early Gillette, obverse and reverse, showing the red seal they had in the very olden days.

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I recently picked this blade up and it's still sealed. It was sold as a 1902-1904 time frame first production? I've had no luck finding anything research wise. Also note the Red Seal on the back similar to the 1906 blade wrapper shown on Mr Razor. Any idea what the blade might look like? The wrapper does not show the Pat. date like later blades. I'm probably going carefully open it from the side with a razor blade and slide it out. I don't want to damage the Red Seal. Any ideas?

This is a really interesting thread. I collect vintage blades strictly for use. In fact they're all I use. Even some carbons that I carefully source and inspect. Schick Krona Deluxes and Gillette Super Blues and Thins, but mostly I use Personna 74s, which I have a lifetime supply of, and Gillette Platinum Plus, Spoilers, Personna Super Stainless, Schick Plus Platinums. I found long ago they give me much more comfortable, closer and way, way longer lasting. I have afew older and rarer old carbon blades just for having but this thread is giving me the itch.

Mouser said:

This is a really interesting thread. I collect "vintage" blades strictly for use. In fact they're all I use. Even some carbons that I carefully source and inspect. Schick Krona Deluxes and Gillette Super Blues and Thins, but mostly I use Personna 74s, which I have a lifetime supply of, and Gillette Platinum Plus, Spoilers, Personna Super Stainless, Schick Plus Platinums. I found long ago they give me much more comfortable, closer and way, way longer lasting. I have afew older and rarer old carbon blades just for having but this thread is giving me the itch.

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I didn't know you could still use the vintage blades. I may have to try that sometime! Is there any thing special you look for before you use it, or is a load and go thing?

Kindly,
Adam

KeenDogg said:

I didn't know you could still use the vintage blades. I may have to try that sometime! Is there any thing special you look for before you use it, or is a load and go thing?

Kindly,
Adam

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Well the stainless steel ones you really don't have much to worry about, especially unopened packages. As far as carbon blades go, I try to source them from drier environments, like the southwest. Of course just because that's where I get them from doesn't mean that's where they've always been, but I look for , in the sales description, something like "found in my grandfather's attic, his personal stash that he never got to (again, southwestern states are good) unopened, seal still intact, and finally, and I'm not sure if this really does anything, but I strop them on an old pair of jeans. As I said earlier, the best ones so far have been the Schick Krona Deluxes that come in a 15 blade dispenser with a unique push button thumb slide ejector.

Mouser said:

Well the stainless steel ones you really don't have much to worry about, especially unopened packages. As far as carbon blades go, I try to source them from drier environments, like the southwest. Of course just because that's where I get them from doesn't mean that's where they've always been, but I look for , in the sales description, something like "found in my grandfather's attic, his personal stash that he never got to (again, southwestern states are good) unopened, seal still intact, and finally, and I'm not sure if this really does anything, but I strop them on an old pair of jeans. As I said earlier, the best ones so far have been the Schick Krona Deluxes that come in a 15 blade dispenser with a unique push button thumb slide ejector.

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Thanks, Mouser. That is really cool. The drier environment would make sense. That's a neat little dispenser as well.