How common or rare is a Gillette Toggle?
- Thread starter K.T.
- Start date
While technically true, the wiki has some further pertinent info:
Basically this razor was made for just one year. I don't believe it is touted as giving a superior shave over any other Gillette Adjustable. The price is driven by the limited supply, and value of the razor to collectors.
Soooo Glad I got mine a few months ago, brassiness and all....The Toggle moves closer to the realm of unreachability with each passing day!
(even more so than the Star)
(even more so than the Star)
The toggle is also unlike any other Gillette razor in a way not noticed by most people. It may just look like a fatboy that opens with a lever, but actually operates totally differently in terms of the adjustment of the razor gap. If you look at the fatboy from the side while turning the adjustment knob, you will notice that the cap and safety rail remain fixed, and that an interior bar below the center of the razor blade moves up and down bending the blade and thus changing the angle by which the razor edge addresses the gap. On the toggle, the razor blade remains fixed in place, and turning the adjustment knob moves the safety rail up and down changing the gap around a blade with a fixed angle. Thus the toggle shaves slightly different than the fatboy.
Interesting...didn't know that!
Are you sure about that? Many of the Toggles I see share the same mechanism as the Fatboy. True, some are of the Red Dot Fatboy variety, with the multiple "teeth" , but most of them appear to use the same mechanism, with the 4 lifters.
There is a pretty nice one for sale on the Bay.
Not sure how similar to the regular fatboys those 1960 toggles were. Achim's thread here shows them side by side here.
Not quite like the 58 toggles, but not quite like a reg. fatboy either.
The Super Adjustable, Slim, FatBoy, 195 Heavy and Serial Numbered Toggle have a stationary safety bar and raise and lower the blade.
The Red Dot FatBoy and Standard Gold Toggle raise and lower the safety bar.
The Red Dot FatBoy and Standard Gold Toggle raise and lower the safety bar.
Thanks to Amishmotorboat, I now have a previously disassembled(and now reassembled) Red Dot FatBoy. What do you mean by "Safety Bar"?
Interesting!
- Thread starter
- #13
I've got a gold toggle at the moment and it shaves very differently to my other Gillette adjustables.
They can't be that rare as they show up on e-bay all the time.
I believe the design must of had some short coming for Gillette as they went with the Fatboy design which evolve into the Slim and later into the Super Adjustable.
The coolness factor is pretty much off the charts.
It's like the Deluxe sets from the 20s and 30s they don't shave better then the standard grade razors but they were a premium products and not as many of them were made as the standard grade razors.
I believe the design must of had some short coming for Gillette as they went with the Fatboy design which evolve into the Slim and later into the Super Adjustable.
The coolness factor is pretty much off the charts.
It's like the Deluxe sets from the 20s and 30s they don't shave better then the standard grade razors but they were a premium products and not as many of them were made as the standard grade razors.
Sorry if I'm using incorrect nomenclature....
What is great about this forum is that you can learn something new about your hobby, which I have through this thread. There is evidently more than one type of toggle razor. The red dot toggles I have, a 1958 and two from 1960, opperate by the adjustment knob moving the safety bar. There are other toggles, which I have never seen first hand, which opperate like a traditional fatboy with a fixed safety bar and an interior mechanism that changes the blade angle. - And just also learned that there is the rare red dot fatboy that operates like my toggles. What is clear, with all of these variations even on limited release razors, is that Gillette made its money selling blades, not razors!
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And a fully cased one went for $418 on Ebay yesterday....NUTS!
I don't understand apparently what to look for in pricing for these toggles. I saw a less than mint, plate-lossy-greenish nickel toggle sell for $299.00 today and a really gorgeous gold toggle sell for only $132.50, both on ebay. Look at them below and tell me why the less-mint one sold for way more?
Sold for $132.50.
Sold for $299.00.
Sold for $132.50.
Sold for $299.00.
