Gillette Single Rings with British Patent Numbers

[kjbarth]

No GinD or GinBox on the razor. I looked on the case the razor came in as well and none there either. Attaching some pictures of the case which shows the British patent # on the bottom as well as the blade cases and both vintage blades in the blade holders.

 

[romsitsa]

British black pigskin 505 ABC with gold fittings. Most likely double stamped with serial on the bottom, ribbon has the line logo. Serial is A001219, making exactly zero sense.

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Adam

 

[romsitsa]

Bump. Canada was part of the British dominion until 1931, so, imho, Canadian sets could have been labeled "British made" in ads.
I'm pretty confident that the high E/F serial 460 and combination sets are actually from 1917-18, carrying a Canadian serial number (after the C/PC prefix was deleted) with an E/F prefix, standing for England and France.

Adam

 

[romsitsa]

From the 25th years anniversary issue of the Gillette blade. Source: razorarchive.com
I'm 100% sure high serial E and F razors were in fact made in Canada.
On a slightly different topic, if you read the whole issue, there is basically no mention of
a French or German factory, only the already well known sales agents and offices.

 

[Rita2210]

Hi! I'm sorry for my bad english.I want to my

Gillette Single Rings with British Patent Numbers​

.BR.Pat.2873.02 Serial number Е075274

 

[romsitsa]

Zombie thread awake.
Pat. Nov. N with US style E serial. My guess is that E stands for A.

.

 

[romsitsa]

Another unicorn for the herd.
Brit.Pat. and Pat Nov. N on tubes, H serial with leading zero, line emblem, star and GinD.

 

[Bobby Prins]

No worries. I'd already flagged yours as a square one from the photos on the eBay auction.



Well, the one thing of note is that all the ones with the US patent date seem to also have the square mark, and the one early "F" series one on the list that has the British patent number instead has the D mark.



Well, in that case I would expect a "V" or "W" series New Improved to also have a "Made in..." inscription, but I was more bringing that up to illustrate things that get passed around as "common knowledge" that don't necessarily have very much behind them to validate them -- that could be because there wasn't anything to begin with or it could also be that what was behind them has been lost over time.



I don't know that we really even know what the local legal requirements would have been at the time for markings, etc. Gillette's practice elsewhere seems to have been to mark the local patent date/number, but France's patent system was very different from what I've read, as I mentioned earlier in the thread. Patents were essentially more like registration of trademarks here in the States. The government didn't warrant them even as being novel, just logged the registration presumably to establish a fixed reference in time should a future dispute arise. From having seen other French-made products from a similar timeframe, though, I would think that it would make sense for them to have used the "Brevete S.G.D.G." marking -- which we've definitely seen on their blades.

I would think the same for a German-made razor. I don't know that it would have been a legal requirement, but I would still expect it to carry the D.R.P. mark. From what I've read, apparently the fees for registering a patent in Germany were phenomenally high, so getting the patent but then not signalling it would just seem odd.

Happy to encounter this in my research!

I think I have the proof for your theory... I have recently acquired an interesting Single Ring lookalike from France. The resemblance is spot-on (silver plated, same weight, same teeth: I don’t notice anything different to any of the measurements) and the case it came with is an early Gillette: 1906/1908 as you can see in the attached advertisement. No serial number...