Gillette Canada serial numbers

[mblakele]

In response to http://badgerandblade.com/vb/showthread.php/305774-what-do-I-have-and-what-might-it-be-worth I wrote "No one seems to know what the Canadian serial numbers mean...." Now I want to challenge that. I think we can establish a waypoint or two. First, we know there was nothing prior to April 1906 - and probably very little until 1907.

Starting with Achim's fine site, I found a few Canada serial numbers. Then I searched the archives here. If this hangs together, it seems like Single Ring and Pocket Edition serial numbers ran up to about 50,000 by mid-1908, and 1M by October or November 1910. But there are a few anomalies, and I am sure I have missed some details.

Full Serial Number||Number Only||Image / Notes

|5646||This could be ca. June 1909, because at that time Gillette Canada was filling its first large pocket edition orders and was having trouble producing patterned parts (cf Peterson, Neil P. Gillette Blade Canadian Edition, July 1918, p31). But it might also be earlier. Perhaps the Canadian serial numbers started in 1908, when the factory moved to St. Alexander Street?

|6227||Thin-handled ball end, no stamping on bottom of guard plate, ABC-style cap studs, punched-down collar, latch-closure basketweave case w/ patent dates on bottom, gold Gillette diamond label [Porter].

|7509||Pocket edition with smooth ball and asymmetrical studs; basket-weave case with signature logo on underside and 1907 Russian patent: http://badgerandblade.com/vb/showthread.php/305022-Smooth-ball-Gillette-Open-Comb

|10286||Early Single Ring.

|26891||Pocket edition with gold plate, plain case, and nut-end handle. http://badgerandblade.com/vb/showth...on-Sets-Part-One-Razors?p=4198261#post4198261

|34717||Pocket edition with gold plate, plain case, and nut-end handle. Diamond logo on blade case but not on razor case - so late 1908? http://badgerandblade.com/vb/showth...-Info-on-King-Gillette-Pocket-Ed-Safety-Razor

|3x176||Pocket edition with some missing knurling, found in No. 502 shell-pattern case with add-on diamond logo. No image of serial number: could have PC prefix. http://badgerandblade.com/vb/showthread.php/176575-Canadian-Open-Comb-with-smooth-ball-end

|40602||Pocket edition with gold plate, plain case, and nut-end handle. Diamond logo on blade case. Razor case has 1907 Russia patent, no clear image of logo area. http://badgerandblade.com/vb/showth...on-Sets-Part-One-Razors?p=2080309#post2080309

|63959||Thin-handled ball end, no stamping on bottom of guard plate, ABC-style cap studs, punched-down collar, four-rivet plain case w/ patent numbers on bottom, Gillette diamond logo missing [Porter].

|6x135||Pocket edition with some missing knurling, case but no mention of logo. http://badgerandblade.com/vb/showthread.php/163819-They-have-ball-ends-and-one-has-a-funky-head

|74562||Another pocket edition with some missing knurling. Case has rectangle where pasted-on diamond logo once was.

|85196||Single ring, possibly in a slightly later Standard Set case? http://badgerandblade.com/vb/showthread.php/301854-FS-1906-Sing-Ring-amp-1912-Canadian-Standard-Set

|11xx79||Pocket edition with missing knurling; floral case with plain underside, diamond logo, and shipper; blades possibly from 1911. http://badgerandblade.com/vb/showthread.php/146524-Gillette-smooth-ball-end

|122134||Another pocket edition with some missing knurling, serial number faint but definitely six digits starting with "1".

|237536||Reported as a Made in Canada pocket edition with "only numbers".

|404543||Thin-handled ball end; "Made in Canada" (left) and large Gillette diamond (right) stamped on guard plate; bullet-style cap studs; punched-up collar; thick, no-rivet floral case w/ nothing on bottom; silver Gillette diamond label [Porter].

|423760||Another pocket edition with some missing knurling.

|762030||Tentatively labelled 1920/21. Case has pasted-on diamond logo.

|866901||With diamond-logo combo-set case, so possibly 1909-1910.

|900201||Single ring with diamond logo under guard plate, in a combination set case with diamond logo inside case. Inspector ticket dated 1910-10-13.

In the process of researching this, I rejected a "C 9325" with add-on diamond logo case. That razor still might just possibly be early Canadian production, but if so the case is an interloper.

I also noted 55962Z at http://badgerandblade.com/vb/showthread.php/144071-Just-bought-a-Tuckaway-Age for a New Improved Tuckaway. Probably all we can say about that is that it was 1921 or possibly early 1922, simply because the serial number is low.

There was a report of 807177 as an Old Type Big Fellow, possibly modified, no case: http://badgerandblade.com/vb/showthread.php/244793-Got-a-new-(old)-razor-and-I-have-a-few-questions. This seems like an anachronism, or it belongs to a different number series ca. 1920.

Then we have BD223866, a Bull Dog with knurling reversed from handle shaft to knob.

 

[alex2363]

This a very well organized system, it can guide us in some manner to the system

 

[Sled Dog]

Great idea...should be interesting.
Here is a thread with my smooth ball pocket edition
SN PC 07509
http://badgerandblade.com/vb/showthread.php/305022-Smooth-ball-Gillette-Open-Comb?highlight=

 

[mblakele]

Thanks for the data on 7509. Too bad there was no blade case with that one: I believe the diamond logo started on blades, then went to the blade case, so seeing it might help with dates.

I moved the Big Fellow out of the sequence, so the only real anomaly is 11xx79: regulation diamond logo when the numbers around it were pasted on, and blades from 1911. Of course it could be a mismatch, but it had a shipper and looked intact. I wonder what happened toward the end of 1910 or early 1911, when Montreal hit 999,999? Did they just go back to 000,001 and start over? If so, 11xx79 could be a 1911 razor from this second series.

For comparison it took Boston about three years to get to 1M and over a decade to reach 4M. After that, WWI production went through the roof.

Year||Approximate Total (000s)||Cumulative||Notes

1904||90||90||1-45424, plus non-serial equal to serial and folding in any 1903 production.

1905||325||415||45425-370424.

1906||400||815||370425-770424.

1907||425||1240||770425-A195424.

1908||480||1721||A195425-A675857.

1909||546||2267||A675858-B222220.

1910||475||2742||B222221-B697600.

1911||383||3126||B697601-C80508.

1912||180||3306||C80509-C260238.

1913||148||3453||C260239-C407806.

1914||171||3623||C407807-C578360.

1915||333||3957||C578361-C911806.

Interesting that production hit a relative maximum in 1909, receded below 1905 levels by 1913, and did not recover until 1915. Anyway this gives us an idea of what the Boston factory could produce.

We do not know what the demand was in Canada, and we know they had problems with facilities and labor in the early years. So it seems unlikely that Montreal production matched Boston in those early years of 1906-1908. Maybe we could project Peterson's comments back in time a little, and say that Montreal got up to about 35,000 by the end of 1908 (and serial numbers may have been confused as they moved factories in 1906-1907). That implies Montreal produced around 400,000 razors annually in 1909 and 1910: possible, based on the Boston figures, but perhaps difficult for the younger factory to achieve.

 

[MacDaddy]

Awesome. Thanks for starting this thread. I'm subscribing now, and I'll add some more data points of my own when I get home this evening.

One thing that I would be careful about is just straight up ignoring the prefix altogether. There may well be a pattern there that needs to be caught as well.

From my experience, with some exceptions the glued-in logo label stayed the norm in the Pocket Editions for a very long time -- possibly through the entirety of the patent-protected run of the Old Types. So, while it would be questionable in a late-model Standard Set case, I wouldn't at all say that that style label in a Pocket Edition case would make me think 1909.

Also, regarding the ones you've noted above as having the diamond logo on the blade case but not in the case itself, I would say they are almost certainly just ones where the glued-in labels have fallen out. I've never seen a headliner with nothing at all on it that didn't at least have a hint of glue residue from where a now disappeared label had been. Take Sled Dog's case above, for instance. If you look closely you can see the residue from the label there:

 

[Domminigan]

I've got a Canadian Bell end Aristocrat with S/N 173489. Just that, no letters in evidence.
Seller's photo, I'll edit later to add mine with S/N clear later.

 

[mblakele]

Thanks, Porter: good points. I want to keep the numeric-only column for sorting, but I will add another column for the prefixed serial number too.

That faint rectangle where the logo fell off was invisible to me until you mentioned it. Meanwhile 11xx79 from http://badgerandblade.com/vb/showthread.php/146524-Gillette-smooth-ball-end appears to be a pocket edition with a non-glued diamond logo, but it seems to be the only one so far. It is the one with a shipper and with possibly-1911 blades, so it could be quite a bit later than the pasted-on logos.

 

[72plymsatellite]

subscried. im looking forward to reading more on this

 

[MacDaddy]

Thanks, Porter: good points. I want to keep the numeric-only column for sorting, but I will add another column for the prefixed serial number too.

The reason I mention it is because I have a sneaking suspicion that the "PC" prefix on the Pocket Editions and the "C" prefix on the inner barrels of Single Rings like the "10286" one you mentioned above may have been an earlier series all their own before they restarted with non-prefixed serial numbers. If that's the case you'd want to sort them separately from each other.

That faint rectangle where the logo fell off was invisible to me until you mentioned it. Meanwhile 11xx79 from http://badgerandblade.com/vb/showthread.php/146524-Gillette-smooth-ball-end appears to be a pocket edition with a non-glued diamond logo, but it seems to be the only one so far. It is the one with a shipper and with possibly-1911 blades, so it could be quite a bit later than the pasted-on logos.

Yes, that style case is the main exception I was referring to. However, judging from the case style -- still the slim, four-rivet version, like the ABC sets even though it's missing the patent information on the bottom -- and from the guard plate with the punched-down collar for the handle to screw up to instead of the version where the collar's punched up from the bottom of the guard plate, I would think that it was probably closer to the time that Gillette Boston stopped using ABC for their Pocket Editions -- say, 1915-ish? It also has the bullet-shaped cap studs instead of the stubby ABC-style studs that the earliest ones seem to have.

I'm still rooting through things here, but I've pulled out three different Canadian Pocket Editions, all with the thin-handled ball-end razors (they're something of a weakness of mine). Here's their breakdown:

Prefix	Serial Number	Description
PC	06227	Thin-handled ball end, no stamping on bottom of guard plate, ABC-style cap studs, punched-down collar, latch-closure basketweave case w/ patent dates on bottom, gold Gillette diamond label
PC	63959	Thin-handled ball end, no stamping on bottom of guard plate, ABC-style cap studs, punched-down collar, four-rivet plain case w/ patent numbers on bottom, Gillette diamond label missing
	404543	Thin-handled ball end; "Made in Canada" (left) and large Gillette diamond (right) stamped on guard plate; bullet-style cap studs; punched-up collar; thick, no-rivet floral case w/ nothing on bottom; silver Gillette diamond label

Sorry for the lack of photos, but I'm dealing with a hard drive failure on my main computer here at home so I'm slumming it on my work laptop while I get that dealt with.

 

[brucered]

here's one for you.

I have a Bull Dog I have no idea the age and the pat # is worn out on the handle, I can make out CAN PAT. M, so figure it's Canadian.

I'm not even sure what the plating is supposed to be...gold, silver etc. It looks gold, but is very worn or maybe it's just tarnish and is supposed to be silver

no cracks in the handle, and the teeth are generally straight (a few slight, slight off vertical). All parts appear to be original, not franken-razor, but someone pointed out (as you can see) the knob on the bottom has knurling that runs the opposite direction of the handle (Crazy Canadians)

here are some pics. the serial number appears to be BD223866

 

[mblakele]

I think this Bull Dog shows how far those loonies in Montreal would go, just to annoy the folks in Boston. And future razor collectors, of course.

EDIT: I updated post #1 again. Soon to be a wiki page? Porter, your ideas about prefixes are right as usual. Should we have columns for the various distinguishing features? Stud type, ball type, logo, etc?

 

[brucered]

I think this Bull Dog shows how far those loonies in Montreal would go, just to annoy the folks in Boston. And future razor collectors, of course.

Those Canadians have no idea what they are doing half the time....wait a minute, I'm a Canadian

 

[mblakele]

Did you mean to add something about the ones in Montreal, as a special case? I am trying to make this all Luc's fault, somehow....

 

[brucered]

Did you mean to add something about the ones in Montreal, as a special case? I am trying to make this all Luc's fault, somehow....

no sorry. i'm not exactly sure where mine was made anyway. it says CAN on it, but i don't have many details on it.

 

[MacDaddy]

EDIT: I updated post #1 again. Soon to be a wiki page? Porter, your ideas about prefixes are right as usual. Should we have columns for the various distinguishing features? Stud type, ball type, logo, etc?

Just caught this edit. It would probably make sense to capture as many elements like those that we can think of that may help position things relative to each other, even if we're not sure exactly when the various elements changed or whether they overlapped in time.

Regarding the "03x176" razor above, I'd be willing to bet that it doesn't have a "PC" prefix. It's very much in line with the later non-prefixed razors we have already: punched-up collar, bullet-style studs, diamond logo and "Made in Canada" stamps. It's in a two-rivet shell case, too, which would imply that it's later than the four-rivet style.

 

[MacDaddy]

no sorry. i'm not exactly sure where mine was made anyway. it says CAN on it, but i don't have many details on it.

All Gillette's Canadian manufacturing was done in a series of factories in Montreal, as far as I know. I can also make out the end of the "BULL-DOG" that's stamped on the bottom of your handle. It's definitely a Canadian Bulldog.

 

[brucered]

All Gillette's Canadian manufacturing was done in a series of factories in Montreal, as far as I know. I can also make out the end of the "BULL-DOG" that's stamped on the bottom of your handle. It's definitely a Canadian Bulldog.

thanks.

 

[MacDaddy]

Found another one in one of my boxes:

Prefix	Serial Number	Description
PC	7?010	Thin-handled ball end, no stamping on bottom of guard plate, bullet-style cap studs, punched-down collar, four-rivet plain case w/ patent numbers on bottom, Gillette diamond label missing, match-strike blade case

It seems like we may be able to say pretty reasonably that the change over from ABC-style to bullet-style studs in the Pocket Edition razors happened somewhere around the "PC 6xxxx" and "PC 7xxxx" series cut-over.

 

[alex2363]

Great thread...subbed

 

[InfernoOrangeSS]

Great thread!
Here's a link to a razor I acquired and am assuming is an old Canadian Single Ring. I'll have to get a magnifying glass to try to accurately get the serial number though.

http://badgerandblade.com/vb/showthread.php/309618-Canadian-Single-Ring