Safety Razor of the Month, June 2012 - Lather Catchers

[Rwoodreno]

I needed a good excuse to take some pictures of my Eagle Premier set, anyway.

I love the little clockwork-mouse-style "key" on the back of the razor that works the clip to hold the blade forward against the stops. It's just too bad that these take shorter than standard blades, though I'm sure I could modify a standard blade to work with it...

I have one coming, not as nice or complete as the above but it does include three blades, one still wrapped, based on the photos. When it arrives I can get accurate measurements compared to Gem blades and list them. It does also include a stropper blade holder. The blades appear to have a wider spine than a Gem blade.

 

[Rwoodreno]

Awesome, Jim. That's the second-generation type I was talking about earlier. That saves me having to get one of mine out.

I went and pulled up the patent docs on that generation -- interestingly, the Nov 21, 1899 date that's shown on the back of the razor doesn't go with the patent number that's mentioned there. US554823 was issued on Feb 18, 1896; it was US637511 that was issued on Nov 21, 1899. At any rate, both patents mention ease of cleaning as the reason for the blade bed opening up.

From the 1896 patent:



From the 1899 patent:



One really cool thing I discovered while looking through these patents that I can't believe I'd missed until now is that the slot that's in the rounded end of the handle extension was designed to function as a wrench for the little adjustment screws that are on these earlier models. I have no idea how I'd overlooked that!

A similar slot is in the end of the stropping handle of the early Scharff Rapide razor from Germany that uses the set screws against the wedge blade face to adjust blade height.

 

[fmlondon]

A similar slot is in the end of the stropping handle of the early Scharff Rapide razor from Germany that uses the set screws against the wedge blade face to adjust blade height.

Does anyone know in what years the "Z" appeared on the Gem and the Gem Junior? Also, was the Zinn discontinued in 1909?