Gillette gold tone open comb.

I had to write a review on this razor as I was so impressed by it. I have been DE wet shaving for years now with my 66 year old skin and have a beard that is not very tough or bristly being on the softer blondish brown hair side. I can get away with shaving every other day if I am not going someplace decent. That being said, when I do shave, I like to do the three passes to get the BBS. Now I have about 17 razors and my main everyday razor is the Gillette Black Beauty Slim. This razor has the proper blade gap setting of .017 on the number one setting and I use it on the number two and get a wonderful close shave in the three passes. And I can whip it around my face with no problem. I use the Tobac to give me lots of glide. I mention this to give you an idea of which razor works best for me. As I do not have thick beard, I never thought to try an open comb design as I understood it to be really aggressive and much to hostile. I also don’t even like to think about razor burn.
So I was looking at this Gillette new open comb on Ebay and read the reviews of how unaggressive it was and figured I would try it for fun. I was taken by surprise. It was not that aggressive. I would put it in the same area as around a 5 setting on my slim. It maybe that it is kind because I held the correct angle or was using very little pressure. But, I put on the Tobac and went with the grain, across the grain and then against the grain and had no razor burn, no cuts, and a very smooth shave. I don’t think it will replace my slim for the everyday shave, but if I want a little closer shave then I would not hesitate to go to this razor. One other thing I loved about this razor is that there are 4 tangs that hold the blade very firmly in correct placement. Something the Progress Adjustable could use. Hope this helps someone find a little gem in the world of DE wet shaves.

I wanted to really love this razor, it looks great - so I gave it more effort than I may have another razor. I really prefer on my Merkur HD, and the Gillette Adjustable for several reasons.

This razor is very particular about the angle of attack that you use it at. Poor alignment will make for a very harsh shave - it is not forgiving.

Once you get better at the alignment - I am someone with a pretty thick beard and thick hair the shave is adversely effected by the fact that this razor clogs easily, which will cause a rough shave - unless you loosen up the blade when you rinse in between passes, or you bang it on the sink - it just gets full up with hair.

Clogging of the razor is one of the reasons I got away from the Mach 3, and the first few DE razors I dealt with didn't have this problem - which was one of the big plusses of DE razors for me. The Merkur has a very large space behind the razor that allows for much better clearance.

I saw mine on e-bay. It was pretty dirty but was inexpensive ($4.25 plus shipping--still well under $10.00) so I thought, "What the heck? Go for it." Am I glad I did. I cleaned and sterilized it and used it for the first time this morning with a Red Personna blade and Roger & Gallet l'Homme shave soap. The result was a close and comfortable BBS shave. My go to razor has been a Gillette Milord. The shaves I get from it are great. However, my Gillette New is definitely going to give it some competition. Though the reissue and patent numbers on mine are the same as those given in the first post, mine is slightly different in that the top plate and handle seem to be brass covered in copper while the comb piece is brass. If anyone has information about this difference, I'd appreciate knowing what it is. I do agree with others that changing the blade is a bit more of a pain than the TTO operation of my Milord. That, however, is a minor quibble. If you can get one at a decent price then I highly recommend that you give this razor a try.