Help me ID this razor...(pics included)

[eric.huntley]

Can anyone help me ID this razor? I'm pretty sure it's a tech, but I'm not positive. It's got no date code where it is on the rest of my razors, instead there's just an "S". It's still on the underside of the bottom plate, but it's on the raised portion(the bumped out portion that makes the "valley") You can sort of make it out in the first picture. Is this the date code?

It looks similar to the army issue techs, but I thought those were all black. The plate on this one is silver (in color). I found it in my dads stuff, and I know he worked at a PX on a naval base, so it's very likely that he purchased it there, but I have no idea what years he worked there. Early 70's I believe.

Any insight would be greatly appreciated..

[brooklynlou]

Looks like an old Gillette Black Handle (Bakelite) Tech

[AsylumGuido]

It's a WWII issue Tech. They came from several different Gillette plants and differed slightly. They all had the black plastic handles and some had silver heads (like your Dad's) while others had black painted heads. I believe there was even a plastic headed version.

[scottydoint]

looks a WWII tech, but is the base plate silver? I think that would make the baseplate a mismatch.

[AsylumGuido]

A couple of versions:

[AsylumGuido]

Here's another with the blade card intact like yours:

[thirdeye]

Just to add, these were WWII era, not all black handle Techs were produced for military personel.

[eric.huntley]

It's a WWII issue Tech. They came from several different Gillette plants and differed slightly. They all had the black plastic handles and some had silver heads (like your Dad's) while others had black painted heads. I believe there was even a plastic headed version.

That was my first guess, but I was thrown off by the silver base plate and the lack of date code. Is the "S" on the base plate the date code?

[Kazeryu]

Just wanted to put in that I have a black tech in the same box but with a metal handle. It's a bit different from the normal ball end handle. You can see a pic of it in the wiki.


BTW, I suggest one of you fine gents add a picture of the bakelite-handled version to the aforementioned wiki entry.

[eric.huntley]

Here's another with the blade card intact like yours:

It's interesting that they seem to have an almost never ending array of slight variations in the bakelite handle.

[AsylumGuido]

It's interesting that they seem to have an almost never ending array of slight variations in the bakelite handle.

Consider that this was wartime. They probably were using whatever stock they had on hand in addition to what they were producing at a lower cost.