A little while back we looked at a lather spreading attachment for your razor. Unsurprisingly, bad ideas keeps coming back – although Fredrick Schallgruber referred to his 1949 invention as a lather applying razor, rather than as an attachment. And it was single, rather than double sided. And it didn’t make it harder to change blades, so that at least was an improvement.
Continue readingThere are times that I see a patent and just know, deep in my soul, that the inventor was the kind of guy I could probably get along with. Charles H Dolan, the patentee of a wall mounted toilet kit, is one of those goys. The mind that came up with this idea is a mind similar to a mind that can spend hours browsing old patents to find the odd ones.
This isn’t the first toilet kit I’ve showecased.1 Not even the first to go on a wall. But this toilet kit is a product of a very tidy mind.
Continue readingRazor handles can apparently be used to store many things. In the past I’ve riffed on razors with styptic pencils, shaving cream, and even pens in the handle. It is an idea that don’t seem to want to die, as proven by Arthur E Keene’s 1943 patent for a soap-containing safety razor. While Arthur’s invention shares some traits with most of the razors that have things in the handle,1 it has a couple of interesting ideas I have not seen elsewhere.
Continue readingIn the past I have referenced razors.click a fair bit, since it is a very handy reference and obviously a labour of love.
The site went dark1 for a while, but have now reappeared at razors.page. Which is great, because I’ve missed being able to access it.
So point your browsers over to razors.page, and enjoy a more serious take on old razor patents than what I provide – more facts, less snark. And bookmark his new address while you’re there.
The word “apparatus” makes me think of something big, complex, and of dubious use. I mean, if it was something simple and useful, we wouldn’t use a fifty dollar word to describe it, right? So it is only right and proper that Hans Schenk and Walter Sprung termed their patent application for their invention that way. It is, indeed, a shaving apparatus.
An overly complex and perhaps a tad bit scary piece of gadgetry. A – in my opinion – contraption of dubious value. With the added benefit of risking scalding the shaver.
Continue readingEver so often I find a patent that makes me shake my head and wonder what the inventor was thinking. Although sometimes I wonder what he was smoking. The skin stretching and lather spreading attachment devised by Vance Fulenwider1 is one of the later. Like several other inventions I’ve discussed, I am struggling to figure out what problem he was trying to solve.
So what was he trying to achieve, in his own words?
Continue readingOver the years I’ve showcased quite a few razor blade sharpeners.1 One I have not showed yet is the Sharpex patent from 1930. I do actually own a surviving example, but it is in rough shape.
As for the why of sharpeners, I have touched upon it before. It boils down to the carbon steel blades of yesteryear not staying sharp as long as modern blades, and blades were relatively costly to replace. Keeping your blade sharp for longer meant saving money as well as getting a better shave.
Continue readingOr as we know this patent today; the genesis of the Schick Injector type D and onwards. And unlike a lot of the patents I riff on, this one not only made it into production, but is alive and well. And expired, so anyone can copy the razor and loading device therefor found in this patent. The patent relates to:
…a combined razor and magazine which are separable to enable the razor to be used for shaving apart from the magazine.
From US patrent 1,969,945
Or, in simpler terms, an injector as we know and love them1 today. And in contrast to the older type A, B and C razors,2 which had the magazine in the handle.
Continue readingSome of you may recall the King Oscillator and the Rotary King razors I wrote about a while back. But King wasn’t the first – or the last – to propose a reciprocating razor. Almost a decade before King got his patents, Robert Taylor got a patent for a safety razor. A safety razor where the act of shaving made the blade reciprocate. Or as the US patent office helpfully classify it:
B26B21/36 Safety razors with one or more blades arranged transversely to the handle of the type carrying rollers with provision for reciprocating the blade
As a side note the blade moving sideways or vibrating is an idea that just won’t die, even if it ought to be well known that a razor is not a saw. To me the idea of sawing the blade is pointless – it would be better to keep the blade sharp.
Continue readingFingerspitzengefühl [ˈfɪŋɐˌʃpɪtsənɡəˌfyːl] is a German term, literally meaning “finger tips feeling” and meaning intuitive flair or instinct, which has been adopted by the English language as a loanword. And what can be more intuitive than running your fingers over your face? At least that seems to have been the logic of James D Millar, who was granted a patent on a fingerspitzengefühl razor in 1910.
Millard’s razor can be described as lacking a handle, like the better known Gronbech razors1 do. But like the later, it does have a handle – just not a normal one.
The razor is interesting in it’s own right too. With a more normal handle, it could have done well. Or perhaps not – competition was fierce in the early days of safety razors.
Continue reading