The Big Fellow. A new – in 1920 – Old Type. Even if no one called it an Old Type back then, because the New Type wasn’t even a twinkle in Gillette’s eye.
So what is a Big Fellow, and how did I learn about it? Especially seeing as how I’ve not heard the term before, at least not used on a razor?
Well, if ‘today’ was one hundred and thirteen years ago, that is. Straight from the pages of “Hardware and housewares“, the advertisement is delightfully simple for the time. A tagline, and a drawing of an Gillette Old Type razor and some blades. No wall of text, as other ads had. Instead the image has to carry the message.
Even today, about a hundred and twenty years after the Old Type was introduced, this would be a pretty sweet setup. Well, not would be – it is a sweet setup. There is a reason why I got an Old Type in my rotation, and why my travel razor is a 1918’s Service Set.
I’m a little sceptical to the old carbon blades, but that is because any you can get today is – unsurprisingly – old.
Injectors can be complicated razors, even when meant to be simple. The forerunners of injectors were more complicated still. But today I have a nice find for you all; a very simple sheet metal injector. Patented by A William H Camfield in 1936, the patent was assigned to the Magazine Repeating Razor Co – the people behind the Schick Magazine Razors.1
The invention was touted as an improved and simplified form of safety razor and magazine, which also was cheap to manufacture.