The when is it a Schick Krona and when is it not DE timeline

[BBS-1]

This happens to be one of those razors that we know of but don't know that much about. Since it is Schicktember I've been doing some research on these and put together an approximate timeline for these razors.

First 2 pieces of information, these razors with the exception of the Eversharp Eagle were always known as Schick double edge razors and not all Schick double edge razors were Krona razors. The second thing is the years these razors were made has never been fully figured out. Based upon my research the razors were produced between 1965 - 1977.

Full page ads can be viewed via the attachments

Here is the first year I found these razors to be sold, no mention any earlier than 1965. These razors came with the short metal TTO knob.
Ad from the Times Jul. 15th 1965


We know for sure long metal knobs first show up on the Eversharp razors in 1967, which also disappear from the ad records by 1968. They also sold Schick branded DE razors concurrently with these razors. Whether these razors came with long or short metal knobs is unclear but we know for sure by 1968 the Schick double edge razors switched over to long metal knobs.

First here is an ad for the Eversharp razors, notice the razor is also packaged with Eversharp blades.
Ad from the Oakland Tribune Feb 9th. 1967


Now here is an ad for the Schick double edge razor even though this ad is from Jan. of 1967 they were selling these all throughout the year in a cardboard blister pack or in the plastic travel case.
Ad from the Central Home New Jersey News Jan 1st 1967



Notice up until this point no mention of the Krona name associated with these razors or blades, i.e. the Schick razors are sold with Schick stainless steel blades and the Eversharp with the Eversharp blades.

Well that is about to change in 1968.

 

[BBS-1]

In 1968 we see the first instance of the Krona name and first instance coincides with the black plastic TTO knob razors being introduced. At this point they are selling long metal and plastic TTO knob razors, also all Schick razors are packaged with Krona branded blades from this point forward.

Ad from Life magazine Oct. 18th 1968
LIFE

Notice this the first instance of these razors being called a Krona.

From here on in I found they sold the metal knob versions until at least 1974 except for the gold plated bicentennial sets in 1976 and plastic knob versions until 1977. I don't know the exact year they split the sets but they did package the plastic and metal razors differently. The plastic knob razors were packaged with Super Chrome blades and the metal knob razors with Krona chrome blades. What the difference between the blades are I don't know but apparently there was even though both were associated with the Krona brand name. They would vary the price of the sets by the amount of blades they would include with the razors.

Here are examples of the packaging from 1973.

First example is of the metal knob razor packaging
Ad is from the Asheville Citizen Times Jun 6th 1973



Next example is of the plastic knob packaging
Ad is from the Wisconsin State Journal May 24th 1973


This how they sold these razors until 1974 when I stopped finding any instances of the metal knob razors except for the bicentennial sets. It is possible they sold them through 1977 but until more information surfaces this is best I can date these.

They do sell the plastic knob razors until 1977 and here is the last instance I found.
Ad from the Tennessean Mar. 3rd 1977


This is the last year for the Schick Double Edge razor and from here on in they only sold double edge blades.

 

[BBS-1]

Finally how to tell which razors are Schick Krona razors and which ones aren't well we can do that based upon a few manufacturing revisions.

Short answer is any razors produced prior to about Oct 1968 are not Krona razors and any razors produced Oct. 1968 or later are Krona razors. So how do we tell them apart visually you have to look at the lifter mechanisms and markings on the doors.



The 3 on the left have the older lifter mechanism, the 3 on the right have the newer lifter mechanism.
The left 3 which are the 2 short metal knob Schick versions and the Eversharp Eagle. They are not Krona razors since they would predate 1968, they also have no markings on the doors on the heads.
The 3 on the right are Krona razors since they don't appear until the Krona brand name gets associated with these razors. Notice they have the newer lifter mechanism and notice how the doors are marked on them.

That leaves us with the long metal knob razors. They based on this will fall into Krona or not Krona.

First the not a Krona long metal knob razor. These most likely are 1967 or early 1968 before they are rebranded as Krona razors. See how the lifter and door heads are common to the 67 and earlier razors.


This long metal knob razor should be called a Krona, notice the newer lifter mechanism and writing on the doors. This style should be a 68 - 74 possibly late as 77.


So now you know when these were produced, which style coincides with approximately which years and which ones are Krona razors and which ones aren't.

 

[Whiterook]

Wow, thanks for posting this. I am going to stop calling my Schick Double Edge a Krona now.

 

[Jim99]

Great information! Thanks.

 

[BigJ]

Terrific thread!! Tons of useful information. THANKS!

 

[blantyre]

Fascinating, many thanks for posting. The Krona is a great razor IMO. It has survived in my rotation for many years and will be around after the others come and go.

 

[preidy]

Great detective work you have me convinced. Based on your evidence I have changed info in my album concerning a mint now notated as a "pre-Krona" set that I picked up from Canada. I was calling the posting "Krona". Inside the Schick DE razor case under the blade dispenser were three unused and factory folded Schick coupons which helped me date my (short handle) DE razor. Based on the expire dates and "64" notations the coupons appear to be from the late 1964 to mid 65 time frame. Thanks for the great investigative work.

 

[BBS-1]

I forgot I had written this up elsewhere when I owned all the Krona and pre Krona variants but I had compared them by shaving them against each other and found they come in 3 distinct types of shaves. To really appreciate the difference you need stretch your skin to feel the difference in aggressiveness or have leathery skin to begin.

These were my conclusions then updated now to show how they line up with the timeline.

Shave variant No 1 my guess is they only produced these in 1965
least mild

Shave variant No 2 1965 - 1968
milder

Shave variant No 3 1968 - 1977
mildest

The first split is between the pre Krona Schick and Eversharp double edge razors and the Schick Krona double edge razors.
The pre Krona Schick and Eversharp double edge razors were still mild but more aggressive than the Krona double edge razors which were the mildest razor produced of the 3 types.

For the pre Krona Schick razors there was one variant I could never lock down the exact production year that was the most aggressive of the Schick double edge razors produced. It is still mild but along the lines of a Gillette red tip Super Speed type of mild.



First the pre Schick Krona double edge razors produced between 1965 - 1968

Shave variant No 1 is the only razor with the +Schick+ logo on the short metal knob. My guess is these were the first production run razors produced in 65 only. Also this is the only one that has 111 stamped on the base plate which if those numbers have some sort of sequential significance then 1 would precede the others.

They only came with a short metal knob and older lifter design. They looked like this.


Shave variant No 2 produced between 1965 - 1968.
These had the short and long metal knobs with the Schick logo with the triangle and the older lifer designs. These also included the Eversharp razors produced in 1967.

These are examples of what they looked what they looked like.


Finally shave variant No 3, the Schick Krona razors produced from 1968 - 1977.

These were the Krona razors with the newer lifter design and came in both metal and plastic knobs.

This is an example of what they look like.

 

[BBS-1]

One other thing in case that Google book link ever stops working. Here is a scan of the same ad from 1968 that shows the first instance of these razors being branded as a Krona and also shows the first instance of the plastic knob versions. One other thing to pay close attention to is the lifter mechanism on the plastic knob razor in the ad. Notice it shows the newer lifter design.

 

[ajkel64]

Great thread thanks. I love these razors. I have always thought that they were all Schick Krona's. Now I have a better informed idea. Great razors.

 

[BBS-1]

Great thread thanks. I love these razors. I have always thought that they were all Schick Krona's. Now I have a better informed idea. Great razors.

Normally I'd say it is a bit of a pedantic distinction but in this case the Krona razors really do perform differently from the earlier razors. I am not the only one who has been on record that the metal knob razors are less mild than the plastic knob ones which we know for sure are Krona and only Krona razors now based upon all this and we also know which metal knob razors fall on either side of the Krona rebrand of these razors in 1968. The only real revelatory piece of information here is that these were made well past the accepted production date which means that 76 Bicentennial set wasn't some one off anomaly for these razors . It makes collecting these a lot easier now knowing these distinctions.

 

[BBS-1]

Here is not a well documented or known about Schick double edge razor that is not a Krona.


Depending the market it was sold in you'd see it branded differently. This razor was never sold in the US, was sold in Canada in 1967 as a special offer but no evidence exists of it being sold past that year. It was sold as a Schick Platinum in the Holland and possibly other European markets and as a Schick No. D60 in Japan. Unless evidence shows otherwise these razors were produced while the Schick brand was still owned by Eversharp so the date range they could have been sold in is 1967 - 1970. They also came in 3 different color handles, black, grey and green.

Here is proof of the 67 date for Canada.
This ad is from the Windsor Star Oct. 17th. 1967


Full page ads attached

Here is another example of this razor that was made in Holland branded as a Schick Platinum

 

[Ad Astra]

Great info on a great razor, thanks!

"Kronariffic!"

AA

 

[Bogeyman]

I have one of the Canadian plastic Kronas. I have also shaved with every variant of the Krona, or pre-Krona, and I could never tell a lick of difference in aggression. They all shaved the same to me.

 

[BBS-1]

Great detective work you have me convinced. Based on your evidence I have changed info in my album concerning a mint now notated as a "pre-Krona" set that I picked up from Canada. I was calling the posting "Krona". Inside the Schick DE razor case under the blade dispenser were three unused and factory folded Schick coupons which helped me date my (short handle) DE razor. Based on the expire dates and "64" notations the coupons appear to be from the late 1964 to mid 65 time frame. Thanks for the great investigative work.
View attachment 1017837 View attachment 1017829 View attachment 1017830 View attachment 1017831

I've doing some more digging and have an explanation for that coupon. In 1964 Eversharp introduced 3 new items to market. Those items happen to have been the stainless steel blades, apparently Eversharp was the first company to introduce stainless steel DE and injector blades to market in the US. They also introduced the Schick hot lather shave cream. The other item was the Schick adjustable injector. There was a big push to sell these 3 items in 1964 after they came out especially around Christmas time in special sets containing the cream and DE blades or cream packaged with the injector blades and adjustable injector razor. There is zero mention of any Schick DE razors or special sets packaged with a Schick DE razor. Looks like they didn't want to saturate the market too fast or waited to see how the blades sold first before getting into the DE razor market. If the blades sold well then they had a better chance of consumers also buying a Schick DE razor. Which according to my research they did sell well especially since they had first mover advantage. Short story long the coupons were legit and done pre 1965 to sell cream with other promotions and just later wound up in the first few runs of Schick DE razors introduced in 1965 most likely for one of the reasons above. It may not date your razor to 1964 but it certainly dates it to the first few production runs in 1965.

 

[preidy]

I've doing some more digging and have an explanation for that coupon. In 1964 Eversharp introduced 3 new items to market. Those items happen to have been the stainless steel blades, apparently Eversharp was the first company to introduce stainless steel DE and injector blades to market in the US. They also introduced the Schick hot lather shave cream. The other item was the Schick adjustable injector. There was a big push to sell these 3 items in 1964 after they came out especially around Christmas time in special sets containing the cream and DE blades or cream packaged with the injector blades and adjustable injector razor. There is zero mention of any Schick DE razors or special sets packaged with a Schick DE razor. Looks like they didn't want to saturate the market too fast or waited to see how the blades sold first before getting into the DE razor market. If the blades sold well then they had a better chance of consumers also buying a Schick DE razor. Which according to my research they did sell well especially since they had first mover advantage. Short story long the coupons were legit and done pre 1965 to sell cream with other promotions and just later wound up in the first few runs of Schick DE razors introduced in 1965 most likely for one of the reasons above. It may not date your razor to 1964 but it certainly dates it to the first few production runs in 1965.

Thanks for the follow up update....Pat

 

[Chan Eil Whiskers]

When I have a chance I'll dig into all this great stuff. Thanks, @BBS-1, for all this homework on behalf of all "Krona" owners and fans.

Happy shaves,

Jim

 

[BBS-1]

For the Krona razors we can narrow down a date range for the plastic black knob razors based upon logo changes to the razors that were also applied to Schick injector razors from the same time period.

I am going to use the L4 Championship razor as an example here since I know for sure it was produced only in 1972.
In 1972 they changed the Schick logo on the razors as seen here.
First is the original logo that was also used on L1 injectors from 1968 - 1972.

Notice the large lettering.

Now here is the same razor with newer logo that was introduced in 1972.

Notice the smaller lettering with the word Schick underlined and lack of triangle.

Knowing that we can date the black knob razors as long as one of the doors has the Schick logo on it.

Here is one from 1968 - 1972, this particular one is from 1971.


Here is one from 1972 - 1977, this particular one is from 1974.


As we can see the logo changed exactly as with the Type L injectors.

What didn't change was the removal of the triangle from the logo on the knobs as seen here with this razor.


Based upon this as long as black knob Schick Krona has at least one door with the Schick logo on it we can date it to a specific date range either 1968 - 1972 or 1972 - 1977.
With this we also can infer about how many years the Schick Platinum DE razor was made.

 

[BBS-1]

For the Schick Platinum DE which far as I know was never produced in the US, the earliest date for this razor for sure according to the patent which was filed in the US and the fact I have an ad posted earlier showing it being sold was 1967.
US3466746A - Sectional cap type double edge safety razor unit - Google Patents - https://patents.google.com/patent/US3466746A/en?oq=US3466746A



Knowing this we can infer if the razor was made between 1967 and 1972 or sometime in or after 1972.

The earlier ones had no logo on the razor doors like this one here.


Now here is one based on the logos that would have been produced 1972 or later.

Notice it has the smaller lettering and Schick is underlined.

The only conclusion I can draw is this razor has to have been in made 1972 or later so unless there is more definitive dating methods we know for sure this style razor produced at least from 1967 - 1972 and most likely later than 72.