Razor: Merkur (?) NOS Bakelite Slant
Blade: Feather Hi-Stainless
Brush: Vie-Long #12705B
Pre-Shave: The Lavish Gentleman Natural Strength Oil Cleanser
Lather: Cold River Soap Works’ Barbere Sapone
Aftershave: BullDog Sensitive Aftershave Balm
Additional Care: Alum Block, Gentlemen of Sweden Original Beard Oil, & Pereira Shavery Boomerang Beard Comb
A seemingly bright idea that I stumbled over as I was clicking through the Mechanix Illustrated archives; the Rally Dry Shaver was a lawn mower for your five o’clock shadow. It folded up to sit in your pocket, and worked by simply running it over your face.
According to the advertisements, the Rally was the easiest, most painless, easiest to use shaver ever invented. Reality was probably less rosy.
A quick search via Google shows that quite a few of these are still around, and looking to be in good shape too. That alone makes me think they were less useful than the advertisements claimed – if the Rally had worked properly, they would have seen a lot more use.
All in all an interesting, but pointless, gizmo.
One of my treasured vintage razors currently in my rotation is my Micromatic Clog-Pruf, which was a variation of the Open Comb Micromatic that dates back to 1930. And here I have stumbled over what very much looks to be the patent for the Micromatic, based on inventor, assignee and how the patented razor looks and works.
In late summer of 1929, Mr Godfrey Dalkowitz filed – on behalf of the American Safety Razor Corp – a patent for a razor…
…of the type wherein the blade is pressed against fixed front stops, which allows adjustment of its shaving edge to a predetermined position with respect to the razor guard, to insure a proper shaving action notwithstanding expected dimensional variations in blades employed.
In other words, a razor of the GEM and EverReady type1 using single or double edged blades. The patent also mentions in passing US patent #13739,280, which I briefly looked at a while back, to highlight what blade the razor was intended to use. To me – at least – one of the defining featueres of the Micromatic when compared to the earlier GEM and EverReady razors is the fact that it is a twist-to-open design, which is in sharp contrast to how earlier razors opened and closed the bear trap style top cap. As the patent text puts it:
It is thereafter necessary for the user merely to rotate the control member 46. This advances the pin 39 and the cam 40 upwardly against the cam surface 37 and initiates a rearward movement of the rack 35. During such rearward movement, the pinion 34 is moved in a counterclockwise direction as viewed in Figures 3-8. During the initial rotation of the pinion 34, the cover is caused to swing downwardly onto the seat from the positions of Figures 3 and 6 into those of Figures 4 and 7, respectively. The bladeengaging members 44 thus enter the respective cut-outs or recesses 69 and 70 and engage the abutment shoulders 71 and 72, the members 44 passing downwardly into the cut-outs 54 and 55 of the blade seat 20 but being completely out. of engagement with the blade seat 20.
During a further adjustment of the member 46 and a consequent continuation of the rearward movement of the rack 35, the cover 15 is caused to advance along the seat 20 in a substantially edgewise manner from the positions of Figures 4 and 7 to those of Figures 5 and 8, respectively. During this edgewise movement, it is to be noted that the front edges 58 and 59 of the links 30 and 31 move away from the ridges 56 and 57, respectively; or, rather, the ridges move forwardly away from the edges 58 and 59.
This edgewise advancement of the cover along the seat causes a similar advancement of the blade 66 and forces the operative cutting edge 67 against the abutments or blade stops 23.
Clear as mud – but it boils down to that a clockwise rotation of the knob (46) pushes the plunger (39) up, which forces the cam (37) backwards. This operates the rack and pinion gear (53 & 34), which closes the lid (50) and at the same time pushes the blade (66) forward against the blade stops (23). Piece of cake!
And to open it up again… well, unsurprisingly all you have to do is to rotate the knob in the opposite direction.
Unlike so many of the patent I dig up and snark at, this patent for the Micromatic has stood the test of time; while the razors may not still be in production, there is a great many shavers out there who still enjoys the smooth shave of a GEM Micromatic.
1) Both brands owned by the American Safety Razor Corp, after their merger in 1906.
My book – “70 razor and shaving patents” – is now finally available for both Kindle and paperback!
A somewhat serious, somewhat humourus meandering rump through patents from the last century and a half, the book explores some of the roads not taken and the blind alleys explored – solutions in search of a problem as well as problems caused by the solutions – by inventors to perfect our daily shave and moment of Zen.
To those of you who preordered the Kindle version; thank you, each and every one of you.
For all those in the online wet shaving community who encouraged me to get into the hobby, to stay with it, to learn about the history of traditional wetshaving, and for the welcoming friendship you all have shown; thank you, thank you, thank you – without you this book would never have seen the light of day.
The key to making a profit is – broadly speaking – to spend as little as possible on manufacture, while selling for as much as the market will pay. Thus the race for an inexpensive safety razor was on quite early, as can be seen in this patent, filed by Percy R Greist and Emanuel J Boyler in 1913, on behalf of the Greist Manufacturing Company.
As the inventors stated in the patent text, the whole idea was to make it cheap and convenient:
This invention relates to safety razors, and has for its object to provide a razor of this class which may be made at little cost, in that the parts thereof may be stamped from sheet metal, which is efficient in use, and the parts of which may be quickly and conveniently assembled and may be readily taken apart for cleaning.
The two main parts of the razor is stamped and folded in a press, and the springiness of the sheet metal act to hold the parts together. The top cap – for lack of a better term – is integral to the handle, and the base plate doubles as a blade holder and take down button. As far as the actual blade goes, there is no drawing of it by itself in the patent, but it looks to be much like a EverReady blade without a spine. It was inserted into the blade holder from the back when the razor was disassembled.
It is interesting to note, by the way, that this is one of the patents cited by Oneblade Inc1 – that is; Tod Barrett, Porter Stansberry, and Mark Prommel – for their reasonable successful OneBlade razor.
1) See US20160288349A1 and US10538005B2, both filed in 2016
I might have mentioned a few times – I’m excited, after all – that I’ve written a book on razor and shaving related patents… the Kindle edition is dropping on the 15th of March (you can preorder it now) and the paperback is now available too – so if you order it now, you’ll get it as early as the electronic version!
Ralph E Thompson was – as we’ve already seen – a rather prolific inventor of safety razors and associated gear, and he seems to have been one of the central characters in Gillette’s search for an improved, adjustable razor in the early 1930’s. As the preamble for the patent puts it:
This invention relates to safety razors, and more particularly to means for so adjusting the razor and blade as to vary the blade edge exposure thereof. Some beards require a considerable exposure of the blade edge if a satisfactory shave is to be secured while other beards require a much less exposure. The ideas of different people vary to a great extent in this matter and, furthermore, the same person may at one time desire a close shave and. at another time a rather rough shave.
So far so good; people have different ideas of how aggressive a razor should be, and people’s needs vary from day to day. Obvious for us today, who have grown up with adjustable razors, but in the context of the time it was perhaps less so. How Mr Thompson made the razor adjustable was very different than the methods we’re used today, and when adjusted it gave the shaver an aggressive and a mild edge to shave with.. useful, perhaps, in that you could do the first pass with one side and touch ups with the second.
In accordance with my invention, I so mount and preferably pivot a stud I to the cap that movement thereof causes such a relative transverse adjustment between the blade and guard as to. secure the said variations in blade exposure, the handle being adapted to cooperate with the stud to clamp the parts in the adjusted positions.
In the accompanying drawings I have illustrated certain specific embodiments of my invention but it, will be understood that the invention can be otherwise embodied and that the drawings are not to be construed as defining or limiting the scope of the invention.
So by tilting the base plate and cap in relation to the handle, the blade gap and blade exposure could be adjusted – as can be seen in figures 4 and 6 on the drawing. A potential improvement to Mr Thompson’s invention might be to flatten the very top of the cams (labelled as #32 in the drawings) slightly, so that the neutral position could easily be found.
The patents is – naturally – long since expired, and thus available if any daring razor manufacturer wishes to market out a truly unique, infinity variable adjustable razor that gives you a mild and aggressive shave at the same time.
Today is a big day for me; today is the day that the kindle edition of my book 70 razor and shaving patents became available for preorder!
You can preorder it at http://getbook.at/70razor_shavingpatents – feel free to share to link to anyone interested. The official release date is March 15th 2020, and it will also be available in paperback.
If your freshly invented razor relies on replaceable blades, you better come up with a way to pack the blades. And that goes double if your blades isn’t perfectly flat, such as the blades for the GEM and EverReady razors.
Enter Joseph Kaufman – of the American Safety Razor Corp – and the patent he filed in January 1907 for how to package a single edge razor blade with a spine. In hindsight the invention is obvious, but it was novel enough in 1907 to be granted a patent. In the words of the patent:
The combination with a safety razor blade having longitudinal shoulders, of a paper slip of much greater length than width and open at the top and having closed ends, the blade being inserted into the slip. the shoulders of the blade resting on the upper edges of the slip and the cutting edge of the blade being a short distance inward from the bottom edge of the slip, and an envelop surrounding the blade and slip, and a retaining and sealing band surrounding the envelop, substantially as set forth.
So in short; a paper wrap around the blade – making the blade as wide as the spine and protecting the edge – and a paper envelope around that.
I got some new-old-stock Radio Steel EverReady blades – inherited from a friend of the family as part of a EverReady 1914 kit – and those blades are packet exactly as the patent describes. And when I bought modern GEM blades loose – that is, not in a dispenser – they had the card-stock wrapper around the blade proper.
