If I told you that there is a patent for a disposable razor that is not only hygienic and sanitary, comes with lather and styptic, and that furthermore

is complete in itself and can be made readily available to the medical profession, in hospitals, offices, or on the highway miles from such olices and hospitals.

It can be made readily attractive for use by women as well as men, dispensed in stores of all kinds, hotels, highway bus and air stations in connection with all modes of transportation, beauty parlors and other places of business.

what would you say? Wondering where you might get hold of some of them, right?
There is just one problem… despite the fact that Mr Edward H Lyon applied for a patent in 1949 and got it granted five years later, it seems it never really took off. In part, I suspect, since it was mostly constructed out of paper or  other inexpensive material – the only metal part was the blade – and by the description it would be hard to see it surviving more than a single shave. In essence, it was the forerunner to the modern day flimsy plastic disposable; just 40-50 years too early.

The razor was to be sanitized and packaged in a transparent, sterile bag with a supply of beard softening material, such as shaving cream, a blood coagulator such as a styptic pencil, and if desired an after-shaving preparation such as powder or the like inserted into the hollow handle to stiffen it during shipping.
Yes, the razor was expected to be so flimsy the handle needed support during shipping – how it were to stand up to actual shaving is anybody’s guess.
As for the description of the drawing;

Fig. 1 is an exploded View of a razor consisting of a holder and a blade in accordance with the present invention;
Fig. 2, a front elevation of the same in a bag;
Fig. 3, an end elevation thereof;
Fig. 4, a section on the line 4-4 of Fig. 3;
Fig. 5, a top plan view;
Fig. 6, a perspective of a modied form of handle;
Fig. 7, the blank used in making the handle of Fig. 6;
Fig. 8, a perspective of the tape and securing means as shown in Fig. 6;
Fig. 9, a fragmentary vertical section through a head similar to that of Figs. l to 5 but designed for a single-edge razor blade; and
Fig. 10, a similar fragmentary section for another type of single-edge blade.

I like the fact that Mr Lyon planned for not just DE blades, but two kind of SE as well. I don’t like the implied fragility of the handle though, and I have no idea how well a razor shaped from paper material would hold up to shaving.

From time to time I have fun looking through old patents… it is admitedly an odd intererst, but the ingeuity of people never fails to amuse and amaze me.

Today I found a patent for a disposable razor from 1945 – quite possible one of the earliest patents for a disposable – and the resons that Mr Albert D Brown gave for coming up with the idea is quite valid even today:

My invention relates to an improvement in shaving devices or safety razors, and has for one purpose to provide a dispensable razor or shaver.
Another purpose is to provide a razor or shaver adapted for a quick and emergency shave for those who find themselves without the usual shaving facilities.
Another purpose is to provide a packaged shaver which includes or carries enough brushless cream for one shave.
Another purpose is to provide an improved package assembly for dispensable shavers.

While the shape Mr Brown came up with perhaps isn’t the most ergonomic of shapes for a razor, I do like the way he carried a small tube of brushless cream inside the handle.
Mr Brown also went a step further than just designing the razor though; he also planned for and patented how to pack, ship, and display in shops his new invention – as well as giving a detailed explanation on the use of his disposable razor:

The abovedescribed container is so proportioned that it can be stacked in pairs, each pair forming together a rectangular body as shown at small a, small b of Fig. 4. As many pairs as desired, arranged to form such rectangular bodies, may be stacked or packaged in a large container. In Fig. 4 I illustrate six containers arranged in three pairs, which, after being stacked or assembled, may be packaged or handled as a larger unit Also they may be loosely stacked, as shown in Fig. 4, for handy disposition in a show case or on a counter.

The inside curved surface 6, 1 provides an efficient resting place for the second joint of the second finger, the thumb and index finger, grasping the ends of the body I. For shaving the upper lip downwardly the handle portion 4 of the body may be grasped with the thumb on the convex side and the index and second finger on the concave side. For shaving upwardly the shaver body is inverted and theindex finger is placed on the concave curved portion 6, I with the thumb and second finger grasping the ends of the body. Thus, I have provided a simple, small, compact shaving body which is adapted for shaving in a variety of directions…

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.

Seems like the cranks simply don’t give up… and the patent office keeps granting patents like the one they granted to Maurice A Keller in 1957.

On the surface this is much like the one I talked about a couple of days ago… but if you go deeper you’ll find that it’s exactly like that one. Place razor in device, then wait for the magic…

As for the specific claims;

Magnetic razor blade sharpeners heretofore known have generally been inconvenient to use because they required disassembly of the razor so that the blades could be inserted into a suitable magnetic sharpener.

Uhm.. the previous one didn’t require you to dissemble the razor either.

These types of Sharpeners have not been successful because they required the provision of large horseshoe type magnets which are very expensive; or else they required magnets of special shapes not generally available as stock mass produced items.

I’ll kind of grant Mr Keller that claim, except they have not been successful because magnetism don’t work that way.