Remember those old patens I’ve posted about that revolves around the idea of using magnets to – allegedly – keep your razors sharp? Turns out that the magnet-cranks have not died out yet… I present for your amusement a patent from 2014: Magnetic Blade Sharpener by a couple of German gentlemen.

Magnetic blade sharpener according to claim 1, characterized in that – the magnetic sharpening of individual magnets which – with or without a frame are made into a magnet block with alternating poles or – which is already configured as a magnet block with individual magnets in adjacent oppositely directed polarity and – with the tray body the filing and re-sharpening device is one-sided integral multipolar or two-sided multi-polar pronounced.

In the parade of crackpots, I present to you the patent “Magnetic razor conditioning and device therefor“, being a “simple and effective means for producing or maintaining a good magnetic influence” from 1927 by John S Forber.

Ooookay. The OCR on the google patent is pretty bad, but I’m assuming it’s the same crank idea that placing your razor blade in a magnatic field will magically either sharpen it or keep it from getting dull.

It is kind of funny how Mr Forber made sure to explain in his patent that a razor is made up of:

…a pronged guard 18, a curved clamp head 14, and a handle 15 adjustably connected to the head 14.

I almost wondr if Mr Forber believed that his device worked best for Open Comb razors… which makes sence if you know a little about magnetic fields, but not enough to grasp that magnets don’t sharpen blades.

The notches on either side of the main magnets seems to be intended to either ‘demaginitise’ the blade, or allow the blade to rest in closer contact with the magnet, or possible both. As mentioned the patent obviously didn’t OCR well, and the parts of the description I can make out is – as often is the case – verbose yet confusing.