Every razor has a story....

[Copierguy]

Do you ever see a razor and wonder what it’s story is. Sometimes you get one in a yard sale and can talk to a family member. Most often they come to us indirectly, so we are left to wonder about the owners and what path it has traveled.

This fall a razor came to me that makes me stop and try to imagine what it’s story could be.

It is a pre-WWII Aristocrat in most unusual shape. The leather case is dried, cracked and peeling on the outside. Opening the case is rather like in the “Wizard of Oz” when the movie changes from black and white to color.

I see no signs of use on the razor. It still has the toe tag from the factory on it. Hand written on the back of the tag it says only 450 (with the 50 smaller and underlined like you were writing a price).There was a full set of 10 unopened blades in the gold blade case with a date code of “M 2” or 1942.
No monogram on the blade case. Not a speck of dust in the interior of the case while the outside is extremely weathered.

Even thought this was an eBay purchase, a few weeks after receiving it, I contacted the seller to find out if any of “it’s story” was known. The seller was a grandson of the “owner”. The only facts known to the family were that grandpa was known to have this razor in storage in his basement and when grandpa moved to a condo in later years it was boxed up and kept in a storage unit in the basement of the condo. Why grandpa had it was unknown.

Was this razor presented, then not used? Was this razor being stored for someone that went to war and did not return?

What is the story of this razor? I do not know.

 

[Dustinl]

Tom,

Great post! Yes, I have often wondered the same thing many times about my razors. I have a Tuck-away set that has a man's name engraved on the lid. I tried once to Google the name, but didn't get the desired results. I'll try again someday.

Think about the history that our razors have seen. I find it very fasinating.


DL

 

[T Rick]

Great to have any info on these. I got a lot of info on the original owner of my nearly pristine '41 Ranger Tech, bought on eBay from his son (coming from his Estate). Son thought it was from the 1960's, met with him (local Seller) to pick it up and talked for about 20 minutes. His dad was in the war. I explained that he'd probably gotten this as a gift just before leaving to fight WWII.

I bought a Bulldog and a Double Ring from two Sellers about 20 miles apart (from Oregon I think?) on the same day. I contacted both Sellers hoping the two razors had come from the same collection/Estate, but no luck. I was assured by both that the sources did not match.

 

[highball]

Great story's, I have this razor that someone wrote a message in the case in 1970. why would someone pull the lining out of the case to leave a note.?

 

[BBrad]

Great story's, I have this razor that someone wrote a message in the case in 1970. why would someone pull the lining out of the case to leave a note.?

They couldn't find the scrap paper?

That one is strange, for sure!!

Knowing a particular razor's history gives it some soul. Many of us shave with multiple razors in a rotation . . . but in my grandfather's day, he considered himself fortunate to own one razor . . . and used it for decades! My dad had a Fat Boy when I was growing up - used it until the '80s when Mother "did him a favor" and gave him a new Atra for Christmas!

These tools were part of their owner's lives . . . any time we can document one of our razor's histories it becomes a tribute to the man who owned it, used it, and cared for it.

All I know about the razors in my rotation is who I bought them from . . .

 

[Mr. O]

I look at all my razors which are second hand and have two thoughts. The first is what is its story? The second is I have saved a piece of history that most people are ignorant of. It's rewarding to own these vintage razors. I mean, I just shaved with a 98 years old razor, a 1912 Ever Ready. How great is that? It's a relic as far as I'm concerned.

 

[njpaddy]

Same with my '41 Aristocrat. When my stepfather died in 2001 I found it in the bottom drawer of his dresser still in the original box. It might be missing a few blades and has no toe tag, but the razor was unused. He always used a DE, but no one knows why he never used the Aristocrat. Always wondered if it was a gift from his parents when he joined the military and that's why it had some sentimental value. He certainly was not a collector of anything. Too bad his daily DE got tossed by my mom.

 

[highball]

Here is a nice Khaki Set I have, on the bottom it has a name and 1942 written on the box. Im not sure why someone wrote 1942 on a 1918 set

 

[johnmrson]

What you have described is one of the great draws of buying vintage razors for me. Everytime I pick up a vintage razor to shave with it, I always just have a few moments of thought about the history of the razor. Where has it been? Who has owned it and what was happening in their lives at the time? I bid hard recently on a Gillette WW1 set that had a number of names written on the khaki case in pen. I was going to buy it and get my wife who is an amateur genealogist to do some research on it but someone wanted it alot more than I did.

 

[Copierguy]

Mike, nice looking set.

When I see dates like that I think this, 2 wars, 2 men (Father and son maybe) and one razor.

Wouldn't you love to be able to unravel the history of your KAKI Set.

 

[Ceri]

I haven't thought much on my razors so far but it's something that preoccupies me with my camera collection.

The first vintage camera I bought was a Flexaret TLR from Slovakia. It was made in 1948 so had survived through the entire communist period and I have always wondered who owned it. Did belong to a party apparatchik, or to someone who opposed the state? Was it owned by a professional photographer, or was it a family camera? What pictures did it take in 1968, or was it hidden away?

It's still the most enigmatic camera I own, and is one of the reasons I generally stay from Soviet cameras - an exception being East German cameras, where the excellence of them in the fifties is a fascination in itself. I've been working on a translation of an East German manual on Altissa Altix cameras - my German isn't great, so it's a slow process. One photograph shows a woman holding a camera talking to policeman and is captioned 'your friendly people's police officer will suggest things you can photograph'. Quite comic, but also a little chilling.

I stick usually to West German cameras imported into the UK, and by reading a lot of contemporary books and magazines I have feeling for the sort of person who bought them... there's a fascinating social history to cameras in the post war period, how they reflected the aspirations of ordinary people, and how their lives were changing.

There is a little mystery to my favourite camera. My Ikoflex II was made in 1938 and is marked in German so probably wasn't imported officially. It came with a postwar English leather case - importing cameras wasn't allowed into the UK until the mid-fifties, and even them it was with a 100% sales tax and subject to quotas, so 'second hand' German cameras had a value many times over their continental retail prices. I don't know how my Ikoflex made it to Britain - I suspect it was loot, but how it was won, and who it's original owner was will always be a mystery.

Hopefully I'll find a razor sometime with a similar mystique.

 

[SRock]

Here is a nice Khaki Set I have, on the bottom it has a name and 1942 written on the box. Im not sure why someone wrote 1942 on a 1918 set

Perhaps thats when it was issued?

 

[valmara1971]

Great thread. Perhaps if you know the history of a razor and sell it on BST you could include a little write up of it. I'd love that myself and I'm sure many of us here would to.

 

[cvixx]

While not a razor, it does have a blade...I bought a Model 1903 Army officer's saber off of Ebay years ago. Had the owner's name engraved on it and the leather sword knot was brown, indicating WW2 or earlier. Checked the social security death index (SSDI) and found 2 people with the same name who had passed on within a couple of yeare before I bought it.

Can't get any farther though. No way to narrow it down. Sure would like to know who it belonged to and its history...

A lot of the Swiss K31 issue rifles brought i nto the country 5-56 years ago had their owner's name under the buttplate. I had two but was never able to contact anyone. An acquaintance was lucky enough to do so and had several conversations with the gent in Switzerland. The old guy even send some of his marksmanship medals to my friend.

Ah, history...

 

[blackfoot]

I am a huge fan of history and this is part of the draw. Knowing and learning the details of a seemingly nobody is where the real history is at. Sure, WWII generals got a lot of fame. But, it was the nameless soldier running up the hill into machine gun fire that won the war. Sure, great pioneers blazed trails and battled Indians. But, it was the lowly settler with his family that conquered the land. It is the story of these unnamed heroes who made history just by living their daily lives is the story that teaches us what is important in history. Like an archaeologist, we learn these stories by looking at the items they used every day. Using these same items puts you there. This is what draws me to re-enactment and is why it is called Living History. That is why it is both fun and important to learn the story of these items whenever we can.