Random find at work today

[Quintar]

So I work in a biology lab and I was sitting at my desk today when one of the technicians comes in with a box. She had found a box of tools that an old lab member who left a few years ago had boxed up and stashed away. Inside were several tools and 2 boxes of blades. Most of the blades were big heavy double edged personna tissue slicing blades...nothing exciting. But at the bottom of the box there was a little yellow wrapped blade with dark red writing...a Valet Auto-Strop! made by valet in london.

I have no idea why the lab would ever use an autostrop blade but apparently this guy was using them on the cryostat to slice tissue. They said oh yeah we used to order boxes of them! Now I'm going to have to scour the lab and see if I can find any more hidden in drawers and boxes and figure out where they were ordering them from...

 

[lungho]

Is this the blade you're talking about? This is from my personal collection:

 

[Quintar]

Is this the blade you're talking about? This is from my personal collection:

Yes it's that same blade...but strangely it is not made by Gillette nor made in the USA. it says made by the manufacturers of the valet auto-strop razor in london.

View attachment 164997

the top blade is an old one that came with my autostrop razor when I purchased it. The lower one is one I just found that came in a box of blades that was ordered 3 years ago. So did valet become independent again sometime after Gillette bought them?

 

[lungho]

Your find is quite odd. Valet and Gillette merged in 1930 but Valet continued production until 1946. Maybe somebody found a NOS source?

 

[cfriend]

Your find is quite odd. Valet and Gillette merged in 1930 but Valet continued production until 1946. Maybe somebody found a NOS source?

Maybe the old lab member had old razor blades