Are you worried that the blade in your inexpensive safety razor cannot be stropped without having to take it out of the razor?

Me neither, but if this ever was a worry for you the British 7 o’clock razor was what you wanted. A simple touch of a finger let the razor spring open for stropping and cleaning, and the razor was so simple that nothing could go wrong.¹

Robert K Waits mention in his compendium that it’s a different design than the American AutoStrop razors, pointing to a couple of patents.

The ones that are quickest to find online it the US patents 764,574 , 1,061,772, and 1,087,544. Common to all of them is a mechanism to swing the base plate with the open comb down as the blade is swung up for stropping.

_{(1) If experience is an indicator, there is no such thing as a foolproof device; nature just comes up with a better fool.}