My father, after I had mentioned my interest in traditional shaving, sent me an email saying he had "a gold-plated razor and some shaving stuff with a history I am sure you'll find interesting."
Serious understatement. Very serious.
The razor turned out not to be gold-plated. It was a rather green and black Tech ball handle (unless I'm way off) Y-4 (1953) along with three Gillette Thin blades in their wrappers, and one still in the razor.
In it to stay, as it was gummed shut. After a bit of cleaning, though, it's looking quite a bit better. In fact, I used it to shave this morning, with a BBS result. I loaded a Feather in it, though. Those Gillettes are staying put. 
The amazing part (for me at least) was finding out that my grandfather had been a licensed barber, having attended barber school in Kansas City in the early 1920s. My father had, and gave to me, three straight razors, two hones, and a strop that my grandfather used to shave himself and to shave customers. Though he never became a full-time barber (he owned the grocery store in Maple Hill, Kansas for many years, amongst other jobs), he took over for the town barber whenever the former went on vacation.
Here, then, is the whole collection (all credit for the
goes to my girlfriend, who is very good with both her digital camera and the GIMP image editor in Ubuntu):
Two of the straights are Genco/Geneva Cutlery Corp. razors, which I'm given to understand is the same company:
and the second:
The picture of the reverse side was not as clear. It reads Headbarber, which is, I assume, a model designation.
The third is apparently a local or custom job, as it reads K.C. Grinding and B.S. Co., Kansas City, Mo.:
The Gillette Tech cleaned up rather nicely with scrubbing bubbles followed by a bit of Brasso and elbow grease:
One of the hones is unmarked, and looks like it might be local stone cut to size, while the other is an import, marked Franz Swaty, Wahring bei Wien, (Austria):
The strop looks like a combined leather and canvas strop, from Chicago:
An amazing day, and a chapter in my family history I never knew existed! I'm still a bit stunned, really.
Serious understatement. Very serious.
The razor turned out not to be gold-plated. It was a rather green and black Tech ball handle (unless I'm way off) Y-4 (1953) along with three Gillette Thin blades in their wrappers, and one still in the razor.
In it to stay, as it was gummed shut. After a bit of cleaning, though, it's looking quite a bit better. In fact, I used it to shave this morning, with a BBS result. I loaded a Feather in it, though. Those Gillettes are staying put. The amazing part (for me at least) was finding out that my grandfather had been a licensed barber, having attended barber school in Kansas City in the early 1920s. My father had, and gave to me, three straight razors, two hones, and a strop that my grandfather used to shave himself and to shave customers. Though he never became a full-time barber (he owned the grocery store in Maple Hill, Kansas for many years, amongst other jobs), he took over for the town barber whenever the former went on vacation.
Here, then, is the whole collection (all credit for the
goes to my girlfriend, who is very good with both her digital camera and the GIMP image editor in Ubuntu):
Two of the straights are Genco/Geneva Cutlery Corp. razors, which I'm given to understand is the same company:
and the second:
The picture of the reverse side was not as clear. It reads Headbarber, which is, I assume, a model designation.
The third is apparently a local or custom job, as it reads K.C. Grinding and B.S. Co., Kansas City, Mo.:
The Gillette Tech cleaned up rather nicely with scrubbing bubbles followed by a bit of Brasso and elbow grease:
One of the hones is unmarked, and looks like it might be local stone cut to size, while the other is an import, marked Franz Swaty, Wahring bei Wien, (Austria):
The strop looks like a combined leather and canvas strop, from Chicago:
An amazing day, and a chapter in my family history I never knew existed! I'm still a bit stunned, really.
