New and useful Improvements in Safety-Razor-Blade Packages,

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.

 Vintage blade in outer envelope.
 Vintage blade partly out of outer envelope – the card stock can be seen through the inner envelope.
A modern blade with the card stock sleeve clearly visible.
Unlike a lot of patents I’ve looked at, part of the useful improvements in safety razor blade packaging Mr Kaufman got a patent for in 1909 is still in use hundred and eleven years later – it has certainly stood the test of time.

Shave of the day 4th March

Razor: Phillips Philite
Blade: Astra Green
Brush: Wilkinson Sword Badger
Lather: Mike’s Natural Soaps Peppermint & Rosemary
Aftershave: Proraso Liquid Cream After Shave
Additional Care: Alum Block, & Gentlemen of Sweden Original Beard Oil

March 15th 2020…

On Kindle and in paperback – preorders will be available soon!
Showcasing a selection of razor and shaving related patents – some of them important in the development of the modern safety razor, others are interesting, inessential, or plain odd – “70 razor and shaving patents” explores some of the roads not taken to get to the daily bathroom routine of making faces hairless we know and enjoy.

Square blade ends

We might not think about it today, but those of us who uses vintage razors dating to before the mid 1930’s are actually using them with a blade they were not designed for – but the blade we’re using was designed to be compatible with them. And while the blade shown in this advertisement that ran in the June 1930 edition of Scientific American isn’t identical to the blade we know and love, it’s more than halfway there… Gillette just needed a lawsuit and a messy corporate merger with the American Safety Razor Company to get all the way there.

As an aside, this blade is probably the one covered by US patent US1850902A, filed in 1929. I might go into details on that at some point.

Shave of the day 2nd March

Razor: Phillips Philite

Blade: Astra Green
Brush: Vie-Long #14033
Lather: Mike’s Natural Soaps Orange, Cedarwood & Black Pepper
Aftershave: Body Shop Macau Root Energetic Face Protection
Additional Care: Alum Block, & WSP Matterhorn Beard Oil

Shave of the day 28th February

Razor: GEM 1912
Blade: GEM Single Edge Stainless
Brush: Vie-Long #13051M
Lather: Asylum Shave Works Frankincense & Myrrh
Aftershave: Asylum Shave Works Frankincense & Myrrh
Additional Care: Alum Block, & Gentlemen of Sweden Original Beard Oil

Comitting a book

When I asked a few months back on my favourite shave forum if I should “comitt” a book, the responce was positive… but there was also suggestions for not just making an annotated and commented version of the book I had in mind, but also to publish a collection of my posts discussing and snarking on old patents – solutions in search of a problems, blind roads on the road to the modern shave, but also good idea that simply failed to gain traction for one reason or another.

This is taking shape as a semi-curated selection of important, interesting, inessential, and plain odd shaving related patents – a somewhat serious, somewhat humorous little rump through the patent history of razor and other shaving related accoutrement, and lavishly illustrated with the original drawings from the patent applications and a handful of other pictures used to highlight points being discussed.

The proof copies of “70 razor and shaving patents” have now reached me. This means that if I don’t spot any typos, printing errors or other flaws, it’ll probably be released for sale before Easter.

It will be availabe for Kindle and as a print-on-demand paperback from Amazon. Prices are yet to be finalized… in part because I’m not sure what a good price would be for a 220 page, lavishly illustrated book.

A 1953 GEM advertisement

You can keep the can of goo, but I wouldn’t mind paying just shy of a dollar for a 1953 GEM with ten blades.
Adjusted for inflation, 98 cents would equal a little under ten dollars today. Not a bad deal all told – it’s about what you would have to pay for a modern multi-blade cartridge handle with a couple of cartridges today. Ten GEM blades should last longer than two modern carts though…

Shave of the day 26th February

Razor: GEM 1912
Blade: GEM Single Edge Stainless
Brush: Omega #10048
Pre-Shave: The Lavish Gentleman Natural Strength Oil Cleanser
Lather: Proraso Menthol & Eucalyptus
Aftershave: Barber No3 Marmara
Additional Care: Alum Block, & Gentlemen of Sweden Original Beard Oil

A 1919 Ever-Ready advertisement

The kit in this ad from 1919 looks a lot like the Ever-Ready 1914 kit I inherited after an old family friend, and which after I learned to use it properly turned into a permanent member of my rotation.