First Disposable SE Blades

I've tried searching for this information but can't seem to find it on the web. Does anyone know in what year disposable single-edged blades became marketed? I don't count any that were expected to be stropped as backups as with the early lather catchers. I'm talking about when GEM and others followed Gillette's lead of marketing readily changed, disposable blades -- only this time SE not DE.

The Schick injector model A might qualify, ca. 1926. I believe those blades were always intended to be disposable, and it counts as an SE razor in my book.

For GEM-style specifically I think there was a long transition and I am not sure if GEM ever made a point of "no stropping, no honing" like Gillette did. By 1914 GEM had moved to advertising free trial blades and a set of seven blades with each new razor. That sounds like a disposable blade system to me, even if they did not make a point of it. Why advertise a free trial blade unless you expect that to drive future sales?

Contrast this with 1909 advertising, in which GEM still mentioned stropping blades as well as offering blade exchanges. Some GEM advertising continued to mention stropping up to 1919, but by then I think many customers preferred to buy new blades on a frequent basis. A 1920 issue of American Cutler cites one store that sold about the same number of packages of blades for both Gillette and GEM razors. By then I think the transition was largely complete, even if some gents continued to strop old blades.

I think the early valet's, the ones made under the auto strop safety razor company, where early gillette completion. The initial patent for them was 1904. Gem lather catchers look like they start about 1906.. It looks like SE's where out within a year or two of gillette..

Most blades, even gillettes, where stropped in the early days.. Gillette didn't want people doing it but many still did. The stropping stopped when the blades became cheap enough to toss without stropping to lengthen its life. Thinking that was about 1912.. It was also a mindset thing. Remember we are transitioning out of using straight razors,. People believed that stropping was needed for a sharp blade.. What I find curious is that the valet under Gillette's flag, survived into the 40's. Wonder what keep them going.

blankd said:

What I find curious is that the valet under Gillette's flag, survived into the 40's. Wonder what keep them going.

Click to expand...

There is a story behind this. I gleaned most of the following from Waits Compendium.

AutoStrop was acquired by Gillette in 1930, but that doesn't tell the story. Gillette was just starting to massively market the NEW razor and blade when Henry Gaisman (an inventor and the owner of AutoStrop) showed up with a patent on the NEW style blade that pre-dated Gillette's patent by a few months.

Rather than wage a lengthy and expensive court battle, Gillette agreed to buy AutoStrop, paying about twice what it was worth, and with Henry Gaisman becoming Chairman of the Board of Gillette.

So, in a bit of irony, we have the company that invented the "no strop no hone" disposable blade being run by the inventor of the self-stropping razor.

Gaisman was fond of the Valet Auto Strop (after all, he invented it) and kept it in production the entire time he was associated with Gillette.

--Bob

Interesting history. Thanks for posting.