Single Ring Differences?

[MSstrahan]

Hi, I have three single rings, shown in picture here.

The middle one has larger outboard posts than the other two on its cap. The right one has smaller holes for those posts, and smaller posts. The left one has the large holes, but small posts. Consequently, the left and right caps will fit on any of the three, but the middle one's cap cannot fit on the right razor, as the holes are too small. All three caps are of the thin variety.

The left one has a serial number that starts with an N (1920), the right one starts with a C (1915), but the middle one has no number at all. It also has no logo that I can see, although it might be there under all the tarnish. It does have the 1904 patent stamp on the bottom of the outer barrel. Here's a picture of the underside of the razor base plate. It also shows the unfortunate crack in it's handle. The other two have no cracks.

and a picture of the top of all three base plates. They look the same. Everything is the same to me, except the different sized outer holes and posts.


Any idea what the middle razor is, and why the different sized posts and holes on the three razors? If it helps, the one with the N serial number came to me in this set, while the others were on their own when I got them.

Thanks.

 

[tubeandplate]

That's interesting.

I posted somewhere a while back about my thoughts about prewar manufacturing...."batch manufacturing" as the industry calls it, which is way out of line with modern methods now with JIT, KONBAN, etc....

My post, where ever it was, was about the variations in the 3 piece razors (NEW's, Old Types, etc...), and why the neck size of the handles are differnt dimensions, along with the flat receiver area on the guard plates, meaning some handles don't fit some heads, etc....

Also, another thread comes to mind where a few single rings' "TTO" bottom barrels were too long to work on the handle tube of other razors when swapped around between others.

I think these as well as your situation is due to the nature of the manufacturing of the time...remember, this was in the first advanced part of the industrial revolution, and all metal work machining was done by hand....an operator and a vernier and a lathe (or whatever)....some tolerances, and hopefully, some talent void of the imminent need to go to the bathroom or to the next coffee break instead of concentrating fully on the part being made.

Gillette had a machine shop (or three)...read in the Wiki history or Krumholz book, or where ever.

This was before CNC machines, and possibly even pantographs, which still would not be as accurate/repeatable as CNC.

What this means is each razor (meaning it's separate parts in batches likely to be assembled/mated later somewhere else besides the stations that made each batch of each part separately) was made by a few machine operators/machinits on lathes, milles, punches, drill presses, etc...that were operated by hand.

I will assume, like with other antique mechanical collectables of the same period I'm in volved in, that Gillette did not waste parts, so if something like your oddly dimensioned comb/guard plate assembly was mis-drilled, they went ahead and made up the matching blade cap so they could ship the razor (or as I suppossed in the other thread, that the women at the assembly table fit mathing things together as they came across them out of their batch boxes of parts (like I'd guess 50 or 100 at a time or something)....this is not sexist, either....Edison during the same period hired women only to assemble the phonograph reproducers becuase phsiologically women were better at that time for handling very small parts more efficiently than men).

I doubt they had any warranty claims, and if they did, they prolly just exhanged for a new similar razor, not fixing the old one.

So, in machining by hand, I'm sure Gillette had a blueprint and a set of +/- tolerances for each part, but being done by hand in batches of parts, I'm sure that these variances are commonplace and are just now coming to light with all the new interest in collecting and people checking things out like this.

I have noticed in restoring 3 piece ball end handles that all the balls and necks are NOT the same...not just in the neck width that mates with the guard plate as I already mentioned, but the length, shaping, etc... of the necks are all over the map as are the ball end diameters.

The stud part of each of the necks and balls is also frequently different lengths (the stud part that is pressed into the handle tubes).

I'm not surprised by your findings, and I can't offer any clear cut explanation other than my suppossitions based on my knowledge of the period in machining and manufacturing, and having experienced this sort of thing with other period products, some of which I have made my living being involved with, so I've had to "backwards engineer" a lot of this type of thing to figure out why /how something was made the way it was....especially an assembly of mated parts, like the single rings.


Nice razors; good post.


Chris

 

[MSstrahan]

Thanks. I agree with you. I wish I could see a serial number or at least a logo on the middle razor, just to satisfy my curiosity. If they are there, they are covered by tarnish. I like having the tarnished look to contrast with the two I cleaned, so I will leave it alone. It must be a lot of tarnish to cover the logo on the bottom of the bottom plate...

You sound like you have messed around with these old razors a lot. Have you ever tried to fix a crack in one of these? I saw a thread where you could use epoxy and a drinking straw inserted inside the handle to stabilize the crack. I'd like to do that, but I'm afraid I might gum up the inside of the outer barrel so much that the inner would slide into it. I guess you could do it only at the top, above where the inner barrel reaches. That might stabilize it enough.

Here's a picture of the tops. Quite a range of condition. All three looked nearly as bad as the middle one before I cleaned up the two on the ends. Someone before me must have polished too much on the right one and ruined the plating. I actually bought the middle one for it's cap, but now decided not to clean it up and just keep the three as is.

 

[MacDaddy]

I wish I could see a serial number or at least a logo on the middle razor, just to satisfy my curiosity.

Did you check the inner barrel? The early Single Rings had their serial numbers stamped there, and it would also be perfectly normal for them not to have any other stamping other than the patent date on them. My money is on the middle one just being older than the other two, which would explain the stud differences, too. After Gillette started making the ball-end Old Types and their own Pocket Editions, rather than outsourcing them to the American Button Company (around about 1915), the studs seem to have gotten very slightly more rounded off across the board than the earlier Single Rings were.

BTW, I'm reasonably sure that that Traveler set ought to have a New Improved razor in it rather than that Single Ring. As far as I know the switch to the single blade case in those sets didn't happen until then. The only reason I'm hesitant is that the serial number of the razor being so late means that it would have been made rather close to the time that they were switching over.

 

[tubeandplate]

MSstrahan-Porter has a good point about the traveler set.


Also, your "unmarked" one MIGHT be a 1908....that seems to be an idiosyncratic year in which some razors had the inscribed "KING GILLETTE" cursive signature, and if I am not mistaken (I think I own one), some 1908's have NO logo....there has been some discussion on this as to why/which ones got the KG signature, some didn't, and I supposse some have a logo.

There are single rings with no logo on the bottom plate, and Porter is right...the serial number on one before....I don't know....say immediate post WW1 will NOT have a serial number anywhere but under where the blade goes on the top side of the blade bed...like 3 piece old types of post WW1 vintage.

Before that...not sure of dates...help me out Porter or Alex.....(yoo hooooo....Alex.....where are yooooouuu????)......the serial number changed from the inner barrel to the blade bed, then towards and into the end of the single ring's life, no serial number at all, just like 3 piece old types.

The 1908 hypothesis seems logical to me...there is a wiki page here on B&B about just this issue.

Look inside...take it apart and look at the smooth part of the knob barrel pice and see if you find a serial number as Porter recommended.


I am going to venture to say that it's on the earlier side of things....the non-interchangeability seems to be more of an issue the earlier you go, which makes sense from a manufacturing standpoint of a new company.

If you read the Gillette history Wiki page here, the beginnings of the company up into 1907-8 or so sound very anxious, frenetic, and BROKE.

Orders started coming in after they announced the razor, and into the second year when they started shipping break even (financially) numbers, I haev a feeling they were playing catch up as they were not liquid at that point....the principles always trading their stock around to eat, mortgaging their houses to keep the company afloat/started, etc....

SO....I'm assuming, since there is mention in the history wiki of a new machine shop location somewhere before 1910 there in Boston, that their demand finally outpaced their initial machine shop capabilities....this (as a machinist) would explain in my mind the frenetic making of parts to fill orders...they probably were running long hours in a too small shop not equipped for the volume they started to experience, and when they could finally afford it with good demand/sales, they did indeed build a new machine shop in a new location.

This, with me reading between the lines, makes me think things were very volatile in the company from an R&D/manufacturing standpoint trying keep up, so it makes sense to me given my first post, that things are not necessarily interchageable from that period. I have used a very late single ring handle tube on a 3 piece handle restoration (the single ring had broken teeth...don't crucify me), and when I took it apart, the tubes were exactly the same as a late Old Style handle tube...knurling and all...

So....I do believe the later things got, the bigger and more liquid the company got, the more "standardized" some parts got...it just makes sense from a manufacturing standpoint in this situation to me as well....they got better at their machining/manufacturing consistency the bigger they got.

Remember, this was a razor...prolly thought of as an integral producct that happened to have a few separate parts, but it was not a gun or an engine where parts would need to be made and serviced in the future an therefore be interchangeable after the fact.


Just my hypotheses.

Let us know if you find a serial number....or...a King Gillette signature on the bottom of the comb plate. That would at least date the razor.


Chris

 

[alex2363]

MSstrahan-Porter has a good point about the traveler set.


Also, your "unmarked" one MIGHT be a 1908....that seems to be an idiosyncratic year in which some razors had the inscribed "KING GILLETTE" cursive signature, and if I am not mistaken (I think I own one), some 1908's have NO logo....there has been some discussion on this as to why/which ones got the KG signature, some didn't, and I supposse some have a logo.

There are single rings with no logo on the bottom plate, and Porter is right...the serial number on one before....I don't know....say immediate post WW1 will NOT have a serial number anywhere but under where the blade goes on the top side of the blade bed...like 3 piece old types of post WW1 vintage.

Before that...not sure of dates...help me out Porter or Alex.....(yoo hooooo....Alex.....where are yooooouuu????)......the serial number changed from the inner barrel to the blade bed, then towards and into the end of the single ring's life, no serial number at all, just like 3 piece old types.

The 1908 hypothesis seems logical to me...there is a wiki page here on B&B about just this issue.

Look inside...take it apart and look at the smooth part of the knob barrel pice and see if you find a serial number as Porter recommended.


I am going to venture to say that it's on the earlier side of things....the non-interchangeability seems to be more of an issue the earlier you go, which makes sense from a manufacturing standpoint of a new company.

If you read the Gillette history Wiki page here, the beginnings of the company up into 1907-8 or so sound very anxious, frenetic, and BROKE.

Orders started coming in after they announced the razor, and into the second year when they started shipping break even (financially) numbers, I haev a feeling they were playing catch up as they were not liquid at that point....the principles always trading their stock around to eat, mortgaging their houses to keep the company afloat/started, etc....

SO....I'm assuming, since there is mention in the history wiki of a new machine shop location somewhere before 1910 there in Boston, that their demand finally outpaced their initial machine shop capabilities....this (as a machinist) would explain in my mind the frenetic making of parts to fill orders...they probably were running long hours in a too small shop not equipped for the volume they started to experience, and when they could finally afford it with good demand/sales, they did indeed build a new machine shop in a new location.

This, with me reading between the lines, makes me think things were very volatile in the company from an R&D/manufacturing standpoint trying keep up, so it makes sense to me given my first post, that things are not necessarily interchageable.

Remember, this was a razor...prolly thought of as an integral producct that happened to have a few separate parts, but it was not a gun or an engine where parts would need to be made and serviced in the future an therefore be interchangeable after the fact.


Just my hypotheses.

Let us know if you find a serial number....or...a King Gillette signature on the bottom of the comb plate. That would at least date the razor.


Chris

These are very good points and insight, i am currently reading the e-Book Gillette Blade, it seems that the company was fledgling and in some chaos in the beginning, even in Canada. This seems to be an ongoing revelation as we learn something new all the time, Porter does seem to come up with some good theories and conclusions on some of these loop holes or mysteries.

 

[MSstrahan]

I have been all over the razor in question with a magnifying glass, and cannot find any hint of a logo, number, signature, etc. Is it possible that the head is from a really old razor that had no marks, but the inner barrel is from a newer one which had it's number on the head?

 

[MacDaddy]

I have been all over the razor in question with a magnifying glass, and cannot find any hint of a logo, number, signature, etc. Is it possible that the head is from a really old razor that had no marks, but the inner barrel is from a newer one which had it's number on the head?

It's certainly possible, and if it were done long enough ago it'd be hard to tell that it was a swap.

As far as the markings go generally, I don't think we're sure at all when exactly the serial number was moved from the inner barrel to the guard plate. Achim's got what would appear to be a 1909 razor that's stamped on the guard plate, but he's also got what seems to be a 1910 razor with the number back on the barrel. I'd have to dig through my Single Rings to see what I've got from near about that time frame that might help there. But regardless, I think we can safely narrow it down to sometime during the "B" series (1909-1911) for when they were doing it consistently on the guard plate. I wouldn't expect to see an "A" serial number ever on the guard plate, nor would I expect to see a "C" number on the barrel (Canadian series razors excluded).

The Gillette diamond doesn't seem to have shown up on the Single Rings until at least a few years later, somewhere around the middle of the 1910s (sometime around 1914-1916). It first started showing up just by itself, and it wasn't till a little bit later (1916-1917ish) that the diamond logo and the "Made in U.S.A" inscription appear to have been stamped together regularly.

 

[alex2363]

That's interesting.

I posted somewhere a while back about my thoughts about prewar manufacturing...."batch manufacturing" as the industry calls it, which is way out of line with modern methods now with JIT, KONBAN, etc....

My post, where ever it was, was about the variations in the 3 piece razors (NEW's, Old Types, etc...), and why the neck size of the handles are differnt dimensions, along with the flat receiver area on the guard plates, meaning some handles don't fit some heads, etc....

Also, another thread comes to mind where a few single rings' "TTO" bottom barrels were too long to work on the handle tube of other razors when swapped around between others.

I think these as well as your situation is due to the nature of the manufacturing of the time...remember, this was in the first advanced part of the industrial revolution, and all metal work machining was done by hand....an operator and a vernier and a lathe (or whatever)....some tolerances, and hopefully, some talent void of the imminent need to go to the bathroom or to the next coffee break instead of concentrating fully on the part being made.

Gillette had a machine shop (or three)...read in the Wiki history or Krumholz book, or where ever.

This was before CNC machines, and possibly even pantographs, which still would not be as accurate/repeatable as CNC.

What this means is each razor (meaning it's separate parts in batches likely to be assembled/mated later somewhere else besides the stations that made each batch of each part separately) was made by a few machine operators/machinits on lathes, milles, punches, drill presses, etc...that were operated by hand.

I will assume, like with other antique mechanical collectables of the same period I'm in volved in, that Gillette did not waste parts, so if something like your oddly dimensioned comb/guard plate assembly was mis-drilled, they went ahead and made up the matching blade cap so they could ship the razor (or as I suppossed in the other thread, that the women at the assembly table fit mathing things together as they came across them out of their batch boxes of parts (like I'd guess 50 or 100 at a time or something)....this is not sexist, either....Edison during the same period hired women only to assemble the phonograph reproducers becuase phsiologically women were better at that time for handling very small parts more efficiently than men).

I doubt they had any warranty claims, and if they did, they prolly just exhanged for a new similar razor, not fixing the old one.

So, in machining by hand, I'm sure Gillette had a blueprint and a set of +/- tolerances for each part, but being done by hand in batches of parts, I'm sure that these variances are commonplace and are just now coming to light with all the new interest in collecting and people checking things out like this.

I have noticed in restoring 3 piece ball end handles that all the balls and necks are NOT the same...not just in the neck width that mates with the guard plate as I already mentioned, but the length, shaping, etc... of the necks are all over the map as are the ball end diameters.

The stud part of each of the necks and balls is also frequently different lengths (the stud part that is pressed into the handle tubes).

I'm not surprised by your findings, and I can't offer any clear cut explanation other than my suppossitions based on my knowledge of the period in machining and manufacturing, and having experienced this sort of thing with other period products, some of which I have made my living being involved with, so I've had to "backwards engineer" a lot of this type of thing to figure out why /how something was made the way it was....especially an assembly of mated parts, like the single rings.


Nice razors; good post.


Chris

I made these assumptions many times, the Gillette company had many flaws, even in the categorizing, dating and classifying areas too.