I see, i got this from the Waits Compendium...it seems like it had more errors than correct data. Maybe we can all get together and send him a notice to do some major revising of his compendium. Most of all Traditional Gillette and other razor historical data seems to be quoted from his book, and the major stuff seems to be incorrect.
So the numbers alone don't signify a Army set, it had to have the THE PROPERTY OF ARMY and the numbers.... I know Gillette made these look alike Army sets for the public and Sears was a major distributor.
So the razor could have still been made for the retail sector even if it doesnt have the patent stamp on it?
Yes, that was an over-site. The 1917 series ends at E 449207, so the 1918 E series should start at E 449208 and end at E 999999.....The 1918 F , G and H series are the ones that start at 999999.
The Waits Compedium dont have the M, or half the N series listed as the Gillette contracted Army sets. So is this another Waits error?
| 1917 | D516475‑D999999 E1‑E449207 | Military Sets | Aldred reorganizes Gillette as a Delaware corporation. Annual sales exceed 1.1M razors. | |
| 1918 | E449208‑E999999 F1‑F999999 G1‑G999999 H1‑H999999 J1‑J7344 | All J Series are WWI production. Annual sales near 5M razors in 1918. "I" was not used as a serial number prefix. | ||
| 1919 | J7345‑J999999 K1‑K927216 |
But it seems that your set is missing the "PROPERTY OF US ARMY " wording ( which i did not notice) , so it is a civilian set razor. In order for it to be a Army Set it must be made in 1918 to 1920 and contain the words "PROPERTY OF US ARMY " plus have letters E,F,G H,J K , M,N followed by the numbers.That is good question...Let me look, but Porter may beat me to it....he is a quick draw of B&B west.
Could have the continued razor production been a result of either peace keeping or police type military procedures? Maybe the Army could have stayed til 1920 under peace times but in non military function.Gillette did advertise and sell the Khaki Sets (and other military sets) to the general public. As I mentioned there in my earlier post, men were supposed to bring their own shaving kits with them. Here's an example of the kind of advertising they ran for them back in the day:
Well, we still don't know for sure that the patent date stamp is missing. But if it is, what I'd said was that would mean that it was swapped from a later razor. All of the razors that were made prior to the expiration of the patent (in 1921) should have the patent date on the handle.
Those serial ranges were all of Gillette's production for 1920. I don't know that Gillette made any razors under their large Army contract in 1920. The fighting had ended with the Armistice in November 1918, and, though we were still on a war footing for longer, the Selective Service operations had ceased even before the Treaty of Versailles was signed in June of 1919.
Krumholz only calls out the "J" series as being entirely Army production. I'm not sure where Waits would have gotten anything about the "K" series. That's not to say that no Army razors were made in the "K" series, just that I don't know of any reason to think that the entire "K" series was also Army-only production if that's what Waits says.
Yes. The newly enlisted soldier was suppose to bring the razor set with them as Porter stated, and the ad has the razor set advertised in it. Gillette did contract with the Army to make them though.
