Hi B&B!
This is my first post, so I want to start by thanking the community for getting me interested in classic wet shaving. I lurked for a while and when I got rid of my beard (I'm now 23 but I had it for about 4 years) I decided it was a good time to invest in a DE. With your help I chose a Merkur 34HD paired with Speick cream and balm. A few bloody patches at first but I'm only a few weeks in and absolutely love it.
After reading about how awesome vintage Gillette's can be, and having a love for "old-school" swag anyway (you can call me a hipster if you want, after all we are killing BigShave according to Time Magazine
) I decided to ask my grandparents if they had any old DE's lying around. Grandpa 1 thought I was insane. "I used to cut myself up something fierce...threw that old thing out. Why would anyone want one of those? You know what you need? Ever seen one of these?" *pulls out gillette fusion* 
Grandpa 2 has shaved electric since as long as he can remember but he had his father's old Aristocrat stored away and gave it to me. Now, I am really excited to use this thing but I think it needs a bit of work first. I know very little about this and have no experience with antique restoration. Any tips you have regarding how to restore/clean/care for this properly or any knowledge around my specific model would be greatly appreciated. I am also trying to identify the brush that it's paired with, but I'll make a separate post in "brushes."
As you can see the handle has darkened significantly. Also, there are a few white spots (soap scum) and what seem go be a few tiny greenish spots as well. I saw on another thread that the exposed rivets indicate a 1934 production but I could be wrong.
This is my first post, so I want to start by thanking the community for getting me interested in classic wet shaving. I lurked for a while and when I got rid of my beard (I'm now 23 but I had it for about 4 years) I decided it was a good time to invest in a DE. With your help I chose a Merkur 34HD paired with Speick cream and balm. A few bloody patches at first but I'm only a few weeks in and absolutely love it.
After reading about how awesome vintage Gillette's can be, and having a love for "old-school" swag anyway (you can call me a hipster if you want, after all we are killing BigShave according to Time Magazine
) I decided to ask my grandparents if they had any old DE's lying around. Grandpa 1 thought I was insane. "I used to cut myself up something fierce...threw that old thing out. Why would anyone want one of those? You know what you need? Ever seen one of these?" *pulls out gillette fusion* Grandpa 2 has shaved electric since as long as he can remember but he had his father's old Aristocrat stored away and gave it to me. Now, I am really excited to use this thing but I think it needs a bit of work first. I know very little about this and have no experience with antique restoration. Any tips you have regarding how to restore/clean/care for this properly or any knowledge around my specific model would be greatly appreciated. I am also trying to identify the brush that it's paired with, but I'll make a separate post in "brushes."
As you can see the handle has darkened significantly. Also, there are a few white spots (soap scum) and what seem go be a few tiny greenish spots as well. I saw on another thread that the exposed rivets indicate a 1934 production but I could be wrong.
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