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1921 tuckaway set?

I recently bought this gold "tuckaway" set:

tuck.jpg

I'm not an expert of 1920's gillette razors and I have a couple of questions:
-I've ssen some sets like this on internet but most of these have the written "TUCKAWAY" on the interior lining. Why some set don't have this written?
-most of the cardborad boxes have a stamp that says "tuckaway gold" but in this case there is only the written "PREMIUM". do you know why.
- on the cardborad box there are the stamp "this set contains 2 blades" but in the decription of the package you can see "contains... 12 flexible blades" etc. do you know why this happened?

Thanks,

andy

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The 1921 catalog lists the Tuckaway "G" was advertised as having a Purple interior and $6. The Chesterfield "G" was advertised as having an engine-turned case & blade box and was $10. The Tuckaway(Chesterfield) was advertised as having 12 blades.
This one is advertised as having 2 blades, was $5, and is not labeled as a Tuckaway or Chesterfield, but instead "Premium". It is a nice set. It's likely a slight step down from the Tuckaway "G"
 
R

romsitsa

Hello, it’s Tuckaway style, but seemingly not a Tuckaway. The red liner is rarer than the purple one, it comes in either gold or silver cases, but none has a Tuckaway print.
The shipper is a nice detail, I suspect the different name is related to the lower blade count.
If your set was really 6 USD than it was even more expensive than the Tuckaway with 12 blades and these were already quite expensive. So I don’t really see the logic in this pricing.
Thanks for sharing.

Adam
 
for original price I mean the one you can find on the cardboard box.

PS: BigJ..... I will let you know.......
box.jpg
 
a few consideration:
Almost all the red liner "tuckaway" with original shipper you can find on the web come with the tuckaway print, price 5$, no serial stamped on the shipper but with the written "Tuckaway gold" on the shipper. and all the ones I found come with serial starting since 1922 (but i'm not so sure about this last info). so I still don't undestand if my set is simply a tuckaway with no print or it's a slightly different model. it's just my curiosity. I mean....in my opinion at the end it's just a question of "name" because it's the same razor.
one last consideration: the serial of the razor printed on the shipper means that the shipper is the original one of the set and this little thought pushed me to ask your help to find some more info. Otherwise I would have considered a mismatch.
Thanks,
andy
 
R

romsitsa

Weird, never saw a red liner with Tuckaway on it.
By Gillettes logic your set is not a Tuckaway as it has a different name.

Adam
 
the original price of this set was 6$
I mis-read the small image. 12 blades were equal to $1.00 in 1921. By 1927, $1.00 would get you 10 blades, the Tuckaway and Chesterfield(renamed as Somerset in 1929) sets only came with 10 blades.
 
R

romsitsa

No need to apologize. It looks like there was a discounted, "not Tuckaway" Tuckaway in the first year of the New improved series. A pretty interesting bit of information, that would be unknown without your set.

Adam
 
On the Diamond, just below the price, it looks as if there is a stamp overlay. Specifically, it looks like it may have read "Price ___ __ .00" Can you read that?

Other thoughts include the shift from 12 blades to 10 blades would leave 2 blades.
 
dear David,
the price seems to be $ 10.00 (at least looking by eye). But judge by youself



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But the most interesting thing is that the price doesn't overlay the diamond but, on the opposite, the logo has been PRINTED to cover the price. I take a look with a microscope and i'm sure about this. also the "price $6.00" above has been printed.
here you can finds some pics of some tuckaway shippers that you can find with google images (search gillette tuckaway) that show how in the space under the diamond logo generally you generally find the price in a "orange box" that you can still seen in the marging under the diamond in my shipper

shippers.jpg


what do you think?
 
R

romsitsa

The case will only fit a Tuckaway sized set and Gillette determined the final price of its products. The only Tuckaway sized sets that were 10 USD are the Chippendale and Sommerset.
Although the razor was made in 1921, selling it for 6 USD makes no sense in that year (or even as late as 1927), as a gold plated Tuckaway cost the same but it came with 12 blades (or 10).

A logical solution, without evidence, would be, that a Chippendale/Sommerset shipper was reused to sale surplus Tuckaways somewhen in the late 20ies or maybe after the New was introduced?
I suspect we are looking for a year when the Chippendale/Sommerset was discounted and the Tuckaway was priced higher than 6 USD.

Adam
 
Thanks Andy.
The case will only fit a Tuckaway sized set and Gillette determined the final price of its products. The only Tuckaway sized sets that were 10 USD are the Chippendale and Sommerset.
Although the razor was made in 1921, selling it for 6 USD makes no sense in that year (or even as late as 1927), as a gold plated Tuckaway cost the same but it came with 12 blades (or 10).

A logical solution, without evidence, would be, that a Chippendale/Sommerset shipper was reused to sale surplus Tuckaways somewhen in the late 20ies or maybe after the New was introduced?
I suspect we are looking for a year when the Chippendale/Sommerset was discounted and the Tuckaway was priced higher than 6 USD.

Adam
I find myself leaning to this hypothesis as well. I think it was sold around the time the sets began to include 10 blades instead of 12. Sellers agreed not to sell the razors for less than the agreed upon amount and if older stock had still had 12 blades, they could remove the extra 2 and put them in the Premium set.
I do think it all suggests over-stock/excess inventory being sold at a reduced price.
Blades were still where the real money was and to only include 2 blades is a good clue. We see this with most of the promotional and customized sets, which subsequentially appear later with the Tuckaway-Type sets.
You’ve all now been invited into filling in the details with fact and speculation.

Allow me to complicate matters a little more:

My unmarked, red interior set looks similar to this:

Achim had it originally identified as a 1930's Gold Norfolk, but has since labeled the set as Premium.
 
R

romsitsa

Messed up. The Tuckaway style engine turned sets were Somerset and Chesterfield, not Chippendale.
So, the New Improved range had the Tuckaway, Sommerset and Chesterfield. Seemingly the later two were discounted (almost double the price for some engine turned motifs is not a real selling point imho) at some point.
The New De Luxe range only had the Norfolk set. I’m not sure wether the Norfolk had an “own” case, or whatever Tuckaway case was available it was sold as a Norfolk if paired with a New De luxe razor. There are, for eg. different latch designs, but I don’t know wether these were changed during the NI era or in the New era.

This case has puzzled me for some time as this motif is a fourth variant, without a name.

The Tuckaway - nickel set is similar to the Red&Black. Take a surplus case, pair it with a fitting handle and a New head=profit.

Adam
 
R

romsitsa

Another "Premium":

Adam
 
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