I have seen a few English techs, ball end, flat bottom and spiral. This one seems different. Any ideas what it might be?
English Spiral Tech?
- Thread starter Mersey Man
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I have seen a few English techs, ball end, flat bottom and spiral. This one seems different. Any ideas what it might be?
Your Tech is from the very late 50s or very early 60s. Roughly 1958 to 1961 period. English. It has the 50s style brass head but the newly introduced then cylinder-end handle. Your is not spiral but regular knuring only made in small quantities before they changed the knurling.
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- #3
Thanks a lot for the info.
Good info. I was wondering if maybe it was a replacement (non-Gillette) handle, I hadn’t seen that one.
I have that exact same handle, except it came with a British Personna head in a gents case just like that. It is not the knurled ball-end handle that Gillette used prior to the lightweight spiral handle. I suspect it's more a matter of the company that produced those grooming sets (such as Connoisseur brand) putting heads and alternative handles together if the need suited them. Both Gillette and Personna/PAL were popular razors for these sets.
You can see my handle on the fourth one from the left in this line-up of my ASR double-edge razors:
You can see my handle on the fourth one from the left in this line-up of my ASR double-edge razors:
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- #6
Mystery solved. My newly acquired Tech is a very rare 1960 German tech. I am by no means an expert but I have never seen one like it, before stumbling across this photo. I must admit I'm pretty excited about it. It must have been was made in England for the German market. The razor is all silver plated brass and the handle is solid and very heavy.
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- #7
Here is my razor for comparison. It's the same.
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- #9
Thanks a lot. I got out the old toothbrush and Colgate. The razor had tarnished a little but it cleaned up a treat, I'm not sure if it had ever been used before. Mr Razor calls it a German Tech, as that is where it was on sale, but the head is stamped Made in England and it was obviously in very limited distribution over here as well as part of of these shaving sets. Having said that, I've looked at hundreds of these sets on E Bay and they usually contain an aluminium spiral tech or a ball end tech not these all brass beauties. As for my sleuthery, I have Ivan 101 to thank for the steer. How he knew the information about this obscure razor is truly impressive. If I might be so bold, could this tech not be named the German tech as it is clearly English. More accurately it is an English Intermediate tech ,a missing link between the ball end and the spiral tech. Anyway its just a thought.
Something that I noticed was that there is absolutely no Gillette branding on this pack shown on Mr Razor other than on the blades. Perhaps this is not an officially sanctioned package?
I have checked back through my acquisitions and found that this handle turned up in a mixed box of bits and given that I'd never seen this handle applied to a Tech figured it fitted with the Personna head that I mentioned above - re-checking pictures of that acquisition, there was indeed an orphaned Gillette head with diamond base and blank cap (no etch) which now, I guess it the partner for this handle. That was a load of British bits, including Souplex and Wardonia.
... so, here's a guess that this handle was indeed available on the British market (my acquisition and your Gents' set @Mersey Man) as well as clearly in Europe given this picture from Mr Razor. British-made Techs made their way to foreign markets whether than was Commonwealth or neighbours in Europe. I still think it's a non-Gillette handle, but paired with Gillette for such packs.
I have checked back through my acquisitions and found that this handle turned up in a mixed box of bits and given that I'd never seen this handle applied to a Tech figured it fitted with the Personna head that I mentioned above - re-checking pictures of that acquisition, there was indeed an orphaned Gillette head with diamond base and blank cap (no etch) which now, I guess it the partner for this handle. That was a load of British bits, including Souplex and Wardonia.
... so, here's a guess that this handle was indeed available on the British market (my acquisition and your Gents' set @Mersey Man) as well as clearly in Europe given this picture from Mr Razor. British-made Techs made their way to foreign markets whether than was Commonwealth or neighbours in Europe. I still think it's a non-Gillette handle, but paired with Gillette for such packs.
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- #11
Thanks pgjh. I still think that the handle is a Gillette ,if you look at Personna handles they are fluted rather than knurled. The handle looks nothing like a Souplex or any other English brand The handle on my razor is unlike any other handle that I have seen before .To me it screams Gillette design and quality. P.S. as luck would have it , here's another such Mystery Tech in the same or similar shaving kit as mine, currently on E Bay UK.
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- Thread starter
- #12
With the the appearance of this second example, the systematic swapping of parts by unauthorised German retailers or English shaving kit manufacturers looks increasingly unlikely and expensive don't you think? What on earth would they do with spiral or ball tech handles that you suggest would have originally fitted to these Tech heads, chuck them in the bin? It seems highly unlikely! Maybe ivan 101 would like to chip in here ,as he knows more about these razors than any of us do.
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Grooming kit companies purchased sperate parts in bulk from companies like Gillette, not full razors.
Check out this early/mid 50s aluminum tech that came in a grooming set.
The chrome plated lid and aluminum handle was added by the set maker, they're not from Gillette.
As pgjh said, the handle is probably a 3rd party copy of Gillettes new design, it looks great tbh! Enjoy.
(I bet they couldn't replicate the spiral knurling for a good price)
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- #14
Why don't you think that the aluminium handle is original Gillette? Most 50s UK made ball end tech handles were aluminium. I own a couple myself. Gillette UK played by different rules than Gillette US, cricket not baseball. Here are the two 50s aluminium handled techs from my collection. Both have chromed brass caps and aluminium base plates.
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- #15
Hi Ivan, as you can see this razor is causing some discussion. Could you let me know how you came by your very interesting information? It would be much appreciated.
Slightly different knurling and finish to the ones found in Gillette sets. It's a very well made replica.
These aren't Gillette products, they just contain parts manufactured by Gillette. Like a cars sound system, expensive cars might have a branded stereo and speakers.
Looking at that packaging from Mr razor again, I would also suggest the handle was made in Germany.
This is the period where it gets cheaper to import parts from abroad.
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- #17
Here is my all English made aluminium handled 1950s tech in close up. It looks identical in all respects to your tech, knurling included its identical .Unless I am missing something I would be amazed if anyone could find any differences between the two!
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- #18
As for this, it would make absolutely no sense in the 60s for a British manufacturer of shaving kits to import a solid brass handle from Germany at a time when the Deutschmark was a very strong currency and the pound was weak, never mind the import duty that such an import would incur. It would be much cheaper to use a handle of very good quality made by Gillette England. As for the Germans importing a British made Gillette razor for their domestic market and bundling it with German made Gillette blades for a Deutschmark or two shown on the Mr Razor site, that makes a lot more sense as British imports were a lot cheaper, our economy in the UK was down the toilet in comparison to the booming "German Economic Miracle".
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Not to muddle things here but clarify something about my handle ...
It came in a box of parts that included (among others) a head from Gillette and a head from Personna. Frankly, I had never seen this handle on either a Gillette or Personna razor before but somehow settled it with the Personna head ... probably because I have seen a number of Gents' sets with a Personna head and some random handle, whereas I have seen far fewer examples of a Gillette head with random handle. That was just me guessing at the time.
Now that we can see a fully packaged razor here with this handle and for the German market, that opens up more questions than answers ... certainly to my mind.
Is it officially sanctioned? There is no actual Gillette branding on this pack. Whether British or German, this handle had to have been made somewhere and yes, given Germany's economy of the day versus the British it does make more sense to think that this was British-made throughout and exported to Germany. The head in this sealed pack is almost certainly going to say "Made in England" ... and the German company packed some German blades in there and that was that. Meanwhile over here in Britain, those razors got paired up and dropped into Gents sets as was the thing to do over here.
Whatever. We are still in the phase of figuring out the questions to ask given limited but growing number of artefacts to consider. It is still a VERY interesting thing and a fun curveball to reasonably recent history of these lovely collectables.
It came in a box of parts that included (among others) a head from Gillette and a head from Personna. Frankly, I had never seen this handle on either a Gillette or Personna razor before but somehow settled it with the Personna head ... probably because I have seen a number of Gents' sets with a Personna head and some random handle, whereas I have seen far fewer examples of a Gillette head with random handle. That was just me guessing at the time.
Now that we can see a fully packaged razor here with this handle and for the German market, that opens up more questions than answers ... certainly to my mind.
Is it officially sanctioned? There is no actual Gillette branding on this pack. Whether British or German, this handle had to have been made somewhere and yes, given Germany's economy of the day versus the British it does make more sense to think that this was British-made throughout and exported to Germany. The head in this sealed pack is almost certainly going to say "Made in England" ... and the German company packed some German blades in there and that was that. Meanwhile over here in Britain, those razors got paired up and dropped into Gents sets as was the thing to do over here.
Whatever. We are still in the phase of figuring out the questions to ask given limited but growing number of artefacts to consider. It is still a VERY interesting thing and a fun curveball to reasonably recent history of these lovely collectables.
... and sometimes did peculiar things to genuine or third-party parts, such as milling the very end off the handle so that it fits in the case like in this set:
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