Flintstone65
Imagining solutions for imaginary problems
Welcome to The Association of Lather Catchers (TALC)!!!! This group is for anyone who collects, uses and/or is interested in learning more about these beautiful razors!!! Membership is simple: have a Lather Catcher and share it here -- preferably with pics, but a description will do -- and you’re in! It can be a wall-hanger/medicine-cabinet-queen, your daily driver or something in between -- we’d like to see it and/or hear about it.
Several aspirations for this group are:
In investigating other forums, this is a pretty consistent characterization of the Lather Catcher. This means the Ever-Ready 1914 -- while a very fine razor -- never makes the cut. I’m sure we’ll have many discussions around this and other topics, but for now, this definition will be our “stake in the ground”.
I will start off the first entry with my oldest Lather Catcher: The Kampfe Bros Star that was patented in June 15, 1880 (the patent listed above). There are no blade clips, and while I have a few wedge blades that I’ve honed -- they all seem just a touch too wide for the razor. I also have some 3D-printed blade adapters to let a modern GEM blade mimic a wedge blade, but the moderns are too wide as well. As I am a user-collector, I’ll continue searching for a way to shave with this Star. The Waits’ Compendium of razors shows this as a Model 2A (Model numbers are Robert Waits’ designations, not the Kampfe Bros); and RW indicates there were two models before this, the differences being the rake (mine is angular, the first model was straight), and the handle (mine is metal tubular, the previous two models had wooden handles). Here are the pics....she's not my prettiest Lather Catcher, but she is my oldest, and I think she looks darn good for her years.
I've got over a dozen Lather Catchers which I'll be promenading through TALC -- but now I'd really like to see and hear about yours.
Several aspirations for this group are:
- Bringing together the collectors, users, researchers, aficionados, and folks who are just plain interested, fascinated, or perhaps even a touch obsessed with these razors and their unique look, history and shaves -- I myself fall into multiple categories.
- Consolidating some of the knowledge for those of us who are continuing to collect and use these amazing razors. There are many, many Lather Catchers -- doing a search in Waits’ Compendium, one can find over 50 different models from all over the world.
- Fostering an appreciation for these razors. It wasn’t so many years ago that people had forgotten what they were. There are stories of people getting them tossed in as a “freebie” with their Gillette razor acquisitions at flea markets, garage sales and auctions. Those days are seemingly gone, which means they’re more expensive, but they are also more valued, and thus much less likely to hit the landfill.
What exactly is a lather catcher? It's a single-edged safety razor where the blade is held over a cupped recess originally designed to literally catch the lather as you shaved. Here's a passage from that 1880 patent:
As time progressed, the "catcher" portion of the razor became more and more of a stylized element until we reached the 1914-style "Little Lather Catcher" where it's hardly more than a vestigial shadow of its former self -- a pogonotomical appendix, if you will -- before it ultimately disappeared entirely.
The sharp edge of the razor rests against the grated or toothed edge of the front plate, and as the hair and soap are removed in operation of shaving such refuse matter will be forced through the opening G in the bottom plate, and be retained within the hollow holder, thereby permitting of the use of the device without danger of soiling the fingers of the user.
As time progressed, the "catcher" portion of the razor became more and more of a stylized element until we reached the 1914-style "Little Lather Catcher" where it's hardly more than a vestigial shadow of its former self -- a pogonotomical appendix, if you will -- before it ultimately disappeared entirely.
In investigating other forums, this is a pretty consistent characterization of the Lather Catcher. This means the Ever-Ready 1914 -- while a very fine razor -- never makes the cut. I’m sure we’ll have many discussions around this and other topics, but for now, this definition will be our “stake in the ground”.
I will start off the first entry with my oldest Lather Catcher: The Kampfe Bros Star that was patented in June 15, 1880 (the patent listed above). There are no blade clips, and while I have a few wedge blades that I’ve honed -- they all seem just a touch too wide for the razor. I also have some 3D-printed blade adapters to let a modern GEM blade mimic a wedge blade, but the moderns are too wide as well. As I am a user-collector, I’ll continue searching for a way to shave with this Star. The Waits’ Compendium of razors shows this as a Model 2A (Model numbers are Robert Waits’ designations, not the Kampfe Bros); and RW indicates there were two models before this, the differences being the rake (mine is angular, the first model was straight), and the handle (mine is metal tubular, the previous two models had wooden handles). Here are the pics....she's not my prettiest Lather Catcher, but she is my oldest, and I think she looks darn good for her years.
I've got over a dozen Lather Catchers which I'll be promenading through TALC -- but now I'd really like to see and hear about yours.