Goodwill

[Ceri]

I was rummaging through my vintage Gillette razors and came upon an English made Goodwill. I've only used it once because I had a few concern about blade alignment, but I think I'll give it another shot next week.

I've wondered about the reasons Goodwills were made, and why they aren't that common. I understand that some were made using existing OLD parts, which with the NEW in production sort of makes sense. My Goodwill however, was a made from a NEW baseplate (without the central bar).

So was the Goodwill a transitional model, was it just cheaper to produce using existing parts, or perhaps a means for Gillette to prevent other makers using a design with studs on the baseplate?

 

[mblakele]

http://badgerandblade.com/vb/showthread.php/99606-Differentiating-Between-Goodwill-types has some previous discussion, and of course http://www.mr-razor.com/Rasierer/Goodwill/Goodwill.htm has some known specimens. All the Goodwill handles I have seen were ball-end Old Type. As I see it most of the plates were NEW, sometimes re-machined a bit, but some models had modified Old Type plates. The caps for NEW plates were peculiar to the Goodwill line, but caps for modified Old Type plates were modified Old Type caps.

But Gillette's (probably Gaisman's) reasoning for this line is a little unclear to me. I think the basic idea was to give away a razor that only takes NEW-type blades, so more of the market will be inclined to buy Gillette-branded blades. This may have also made it easier to discontinue three-hole blades, which were more expensive to produce. Making so many variants and re-machining parts seems like an expensive way to do that, but manufacturing was a bit different back then. And in the middle of the depression, I suppose labor was cheap enough.

I suppose all this fed into Stampleman's design for the three-piece Tech. As the first Gillette razor with a stamped plate, it must have greatly reduced manufacturing costs. After 1938, any giveaway razor would be a Tech.

 

[MacDaddy]

All the Goodwill handles I have seen were ball-end Old Type.

I've seen a number of Canadian ones show up with Probak style handles, too. At first I thought that they may have just been Frankenrazors, but I've seen enough examples now to make me think that they may have been original. It'd make sense if they were discontinuing the Probak razor after the merger that they'd have had some left-over handles.

But Gillette's (probably Gaisman's) reasoning for this line is a little unclear to me. I think the basic idea was to give away a razor that only takes NEW-type blades, so more of the market will be inclined to buy Gillette-branded blades. This may have also made it easier to discontinue three-hole blades, which were more expensive to produce. Making so many variants and re-machining parts seems like an expensive way to do that, but manufacturing was a bit different back then. And in the middle of the depression, I suppose labor was cheap enough.

I'm sure that was the thinking -- with the Auto-Strop lawsuit settled and the patents consolidated, Gillette's NEW blades' key features couldn't be duplicated by competitors and the Goodwill design would only work with blades that had those features -- and with the Old-Type-based Goodwills that makes absolute sense. They took a razor head that would have previously worked with any three-hole blade and converted it to one that needed the NEW blades.

But the Goodwills that are based on the NEW head design don't quite make sense to me in that respect. The NEW head already wouldn't work with the older three-holed blades. You needed to have a slotted blade with the four corner knockouts in order for it to fit, which were protected under the active patents at the time. It's possible that the Goodwill's design was also about making it dangerous to use any competitor's blade who happened to worm their way around the specific claims of the patents to make a blade that would still fit into the Goodwill head.

The two parts of the Goodwill head don't lock into each other at all. That is, when you put them together there is still quite a lot of slop between the cap and the guard plate compared to the Old Type or the NEW heads that lock together securely even without a blade. That is because the two parts of the Goodwill head actually lock onto the blade itself in order to align properly. The corner studs on the cap need the four corner knockouts on the blade, and the studs on the guard plate need the diamond knockouts inside the blade to fit properly. Once the Goodwill head is put together with a proper blade installed it automatically aligns correctly and all that slop is gone. But competitors couldn't copy those features exactly so even though they might be able to make a blade that fit, it would be very hard for them to have come up with a non-infringing design that locked the Goodwill head securely.

 

[Ceri]

Thanks both. It certainly need to show the Goodwill more faith than I have.

 

[mblakele]

I've seen a number of Canadian ones show up with Probak style handles, too. At first I thought that they may have just been Frankenrazors, but I've seen enough examples now to make me think that they may have been original. It'd make sense if they were discontinuing the Probak razor after the merger that they'd have had some left-over handles.

[...]

But the Goodwills that are based on the NEW head design don't quite make sense to me in that respect. The NEW head already wouldn't work with the older three-holed blades. You needed to have a slotted blade with the four corner knockouts in order for it to fit, which were protected under the active patents at the time. It's possible that the Goodwill's design was also about making it dangerous to use any competitor's blade who happened to worm their way around the specific claims of the patents to make a blade that would still fit into the Goodwill head.

The two parts of the Goodwill head don't lock into each other at all. That is, when you put them together there is still quite a lot of slop between the cap and the guard plate compared to the Old Type or the NEW heads that lock together securely even without a blade. That is because the two parts of the Goodwill head actually lock onto the blade itself in order to align properly. The corner studs on the cap need the four corner knockouts on the blade, and the studs on the guard plate need the diamond knockouts inside the blade to fit properly. Once the Goodwill head is put together with a proper blade installed it automatically aligns correctly and all that slop is gone. But competitors couldn't copy those features exactly so even though they might be able to make a blade that fit, it would be very hard for them to have come up with a non-infringing design that locked the Goodwill head securely.

Excellent points. Are you aware that Gillette dumped a lot of Probak razors on the Canadian market, after they were discontinued? Those handles were more durable than the crack-prone ball-end old type. Not saying you are wrong by any means: just adding a little more data.

The Probak head is somewhat relevant to the Goodwill, too. My example has a similar design to the Goodwill heads, with reverse-studs and corresponding cap indents, but with the NEW-style corner nubs. The guard plate is curved more like an Old Type. One story about the Probak design is that Gaisman made several variations on the guard and blade, because he was experimenting with different patent design strategies. So maybe some of the Goodwill cap parts were brought over with Probak? If so, they ought to be zinc alloy, and measurably lighter than the Gillette brass caps.

 

[MacDaddy]

Excellent points. Are you aware that Gillette dumped a lot of Probak razors on the Canadian market, after they were discontinued? Those handles were more durable than the crack-prone ball-end old type. Not saying you are wrong by any means: just adding a little more data.

No, I hadn't heard that before. That's very interesting, though.

The Probak head is somewhat relevant to the Goodwill, too. My example has a similar design to the Goodwill heads, with reverse-studs and corresponding cap indents, but with the NEW-style corner nubs. The guard plate is curved more like an Old Type. One story about the Probak design is that Gaisman made several variations on the guard and blade, because he was experimenting with different patent design strategies.

Here's an image from one of Gaisman's patent filings for the Probak blade and head design that includes many if not all of the stud designs that showed up on the Probak. Yours is Fig. 11 and mine (below) is Fig. 12.

So maybe some of the Goodwill cap parts were brought over with Probak? If so, they ought to be zinc alloy, and measurably lighter than the Gillette brass caps.

While the basic design concepts certainly were brought over, I don't think the parts themselves were. The Goodwill caps are the same basic shape as their standard Gillette counterparts, where the Probak caps are wider from side to side and shorter from front to back. Here's one of my Probak heads next to a Goodwill #170 head, which has the Probak-style studs. (Sorry for the crappy iPhone photo.) The Probak cap is noticeably lighter than the Goodwill cap, too.

 

[mblakele]

Here is a reference for those close-out Probak sets in the June 1936 Ottawa Citizen: http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=zG0uAAAAIBAJ&sjid=U9oFAAAAIBAJ&pg=6389,819817. I ran across several ads like this at one time and linked to this one from Probak on the wiki, but I cannot seem to recreate the same search results now. Anyway at CAN-0.29 for a razor and five blades, I would take three. Back in August 1930 the introductory offer was $1 for a razor and 8 blades: http://news.google.com/newspapers?n...Q0xAAAAIBAJ&sjid=meEFAAAAIBAJ&pg=4611,4488399.