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Vintage blade collectors club

I'm on a vintage kick lately. I have to say I've been lucky this week as I've scored some nice blades. No luck on Wilkinsons though, there are many on the auction site right now but at outrageous prices.

12 Dutch Schick Super Stainless for the French market.
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40 "Swedes"
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10 Annecy-France GBE + 36 Polish(?) GBE
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5 British Personna Super Stainless + 5 Personna 74
This lot was a gamble because the tucks are not sealed (maybe the Personna dispenser is) but for €9 shipped I couldn't let it pass.
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The two "Franchino" tucks made me smile. It's Italian for "Frankie" or "Little Frank". Sounds like some goodfellas' blades :001_tongu
I know what you mean about the Wilkinsons, at least the Light Brigades. I only shave with vintage blades and have been able, with patience, to get all the others at costs equal to modern ones, at least on a cost per shave basis except for those Wilkinsons. Sellers ask high and don't budge.
 
I know what you mean about the Wilkinsons, at least the Light Brigades. I only shave with vintage blades and have been able, with patience, to get all the others at costs equal to modern ones, at least on a cost per shave basis except for those Wilkinsons. Sellers ask high and don't budge.

Many "Stainless Steel" & "Super Sword Edge" available at around $5-6 per blade :blue:
There are also some post-1974 "diagonal" blades but as you said they weren't as good as the previous ones so I won't buy them at $1,5 per blade. Now I'm focused on Gillette "Super Silvers" (European "Spoilers"). It seems they are easier to get below the $0.50 per blade limit. As you say, patience is needed.
 
I opened up a pack of Made in England Sword Edges 5-pack this morning that came with a lot of shaving stuff I picked up.

I wasn't that impressed with the Sword Edge, easily the most dull blade I've used to date, lots of pulling and downright painful with a Gillette New Deluxe. This was giving it a fair go by only introducing into the shave on 3rd pass, when most of the work had already been done with a Lord Platinum.

Probably a bit of hype or YMMV in regards to these old wilkies... Maybe they improve or need to be stropped?

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I opened up a pack of Made in England Sword Edges 5-pack this morning that came with a lot of shaving stuff I picked up.

I wasn't that impressed with the Sword Edge, easily the most dull blade I've used to date, lots of pulling and downright painful with a Gillette New Deluxe. This was giving it a fair go by only introducing into the shave on 3rd pass, when most of the work had already been done with a Lord Platinum.

Probably a bit of hype or YMMV in regards to these old wilkies... Maybe they improve or need to be stropped?

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I did a bit more research and found some more info on another forum. What I used here are the 1956-1960 Sword Edge blades, and are supposed to be terrible, as they have no coating. That could explain things.
 
Its mostly about conditions they've experienced over the years. Vintage blades in excellent to pristine condition are unmatched in terms of smoothness, sharpness, longevity and comfort by modern blades but getting the right ones requires more than just ordering the first you find.
 
I picked up a large lot of Wilkinson "Super Sword Edge", these are lot better than the earlier Sword Edge that I tried.

I'll do more shaving with these Supers and report back on how these go.
 
I picked up a large lot of Wilkinson "Super Sword Edge", these are lot better than the earlier Sword Edge that I tried.

I'll do more shaving with these Supers and report back on how these go.
I have a lot of those. Besides being a great blade I love the larger, longer dispenser they come in. The fact that most vintage blades come in dispensers is what first directed my eye that way.
 
I've now had 9 days shaves out of my first Super Sword Edge blade. The sharpness has dropped off, but shaving is still very good and smooth with aggressive/heavier razors. It seems wrong/wasteful to dispose of this first blade yet.

Here are some photos. The blade shown is the 9-day blade, so some of the print looks to have washed off. The main carton is marked as International Pack with 25 sealed boxes of 5 blades

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I did a bit more research and found some more info on another forum. What I used here are the 1956-1960 Sword Edge blades, and are supposed to be terrible, as they have no coating. That could explain things.
If they are indeed from those years then they are carbon steel not stainless and they degrade, oxidize, quickly unless they have been kept in an airtight container and have spent the intervening years in a dry climate. If you can find some that have the aforementioned provenance they will perform excellently.
 
I managed to win a lot of some 60's/70's vintage blades on the German auction site. The lot consists mainly of Gillette dispensers and German Rotbart blades but it also includes two tucks of German Wilkinsons:

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According to some old print ads, the German "Sword-Edge" were produced since 1967 while the "Dreifach-veredelt" (Triple Coated) are from 1973. In this German timeline, around 1970, another Wilkie was introduced, the "Chromstabilisiert".
Could this elusive 1970 Chrome blade be the German equivalent of the LBs?

1967-Wilkinson_Blades.jpg1970_Wilkinson_Blades.jpg 1973_Wilkinson_Blades.jpg

While I can imagine these Solingen blades are not on par with their British counterparts, has any experienced member used any of these? I sort of like the modern German Wilkinson Sword, I assume these vintage can only be better.

German really like their blades Ice-tempered ("eisgehartet"!) Merkur, Timor, Razolution modern blades are also "eisgehartet".
 
After a subpar shave for the past 2 weeks with a Vintage London Bridge, it was time to revisit another vintage Wilkinson Sword variety from my stash, the diagonal lines blade which I refer to as Sword Masters as this is the earliest packaging I've seen them in. It was as smooth and comfortable as I remember just ever so slight notch below the LB's. Not my photo but this is the blade in question.
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After a subpar shave for the past 2 weeks with a Vintage London Bridge, it was time to revisit another vintage Wilkinson Sword variety from my stash, the diagonal lines blade which I refer to as Sword Masters as this is the earliest packaging I've seen them in. It was as smooth and comfortable as I remember just ever so slight notch below the LB's. Not my photo but this is the blade in question.

What does the tuck/packet look like, a set of photos would be great.
 
I came across some of these Wilkinson blades here in Australia.

They aren't marked as Made in England anywhere, but the packet styling seems to pre-date when they were made in Germany, and probably from the 80s. I'm guessing these are Made in England but made for and sold in an export market not the USA or UK.
The condition of the packaging while sealed in plastic per tuck has degraded significantly lot, and the blades have a light layer of tarnish on them which comes off, the paper and cardboard packaging has oxidixed a lot, there are no numbers or codes anywhere. The edge of the blades works fine for typically 4-5 shaves with no tugging.
The blade wrappers are plain with no markings or print. The blade print/markings are identical on each side.
I would be interested to hear if anyone else has come across this variant, as I haven't found anything on the shave forums.

The blade pictured has had 4 good shaves from it so far, very smooth and decently sharp. Smoother than the Super Sword Edges for sure, possibly not as sharp.

I also have some similar white packet tucks that have Made in England on the plastic tuck, on the blade, and on the wrapper (like these but no blister packs ).

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I came across some of these Wilkinson blades here in Australia.

They aren't marked as Made in England anywhere, but the packet styling seems to pre-date when they were made in Germany, and probably from the 80s. I'm guessing these are Made in England but made for and sold in an export market not the USA or UK.


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Those diagonal stripes first appeared on Wilkinson Sword blades in 1974. Usually there's a circle on the bottom of the dispenser with the words: "Made in England". I don't know of any other plants beside England and Germany in the 70's or 80's so I tend to believe they were made in Germany for export.

These 10-blades dispenser were commonly sold in Australia:
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Those were distributed by Edgewell Milford CT USA and produced in Germany. Maybe they followed the same route as yours.
 
Those diagonal stripes first appeared on Wilkinson Sword blades in 1974. Usually there's a circle on the bottom of the dispenser with the words: "Made in England". I don't know of any other plants beside England and Germany in the 70's or 80's so I tend to believe they were made in Germany for export.

What from I read on Wikipedia, Wilkinson's parent company stopped making blades in UK and moved operations to Germany in 1998. So I think anything before than in made in UK?

From what I learnt on a UK based forum, after the 3-stripe printing design on the blade, Wilkinson may have changed it up by removing the stripes and moved the logo back into the centre, while still manufacturing in the UK, as per attached below:

So I think the blades I have pre-date this design change and the move to Germany, but there is nothing to say where they are made. Either way my possibly-fake Wilkinson blades seem to be decent enough.
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What from I read on Wikipedia, Wilkinson's parent company stopped making blades in UK and moved operations to Germany in 1998. So I think anything before than in made in UK?

From what I learnt on a UK based forum, after the 3-stripe printing design on the blade, Wilkinson may have changed it up by removing the stripes and moved the logo back into the centre, while still manufacturing in the UK, as per attached below:

So I think the blades I have pre-date this design change and the move to Germany, but there is nothing to say where they are made. Either way my possibly-fake Wilkinson blades seem to be decent enough.
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I personally have and shaved with German made Wilkinsons from 1968 and 1973. They were producing razor blades both in England and Germany in the late 60's. I have the blades pictured in this 1973 vintage ad.

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The first diagonal 3-stripes blades I know of are some blades produced in 1974 and sold during the 1974 Football World Cup held in Germany. They have been on sale on eBay for ages but I can't find the auction anymore. The diagonal striping has been printed at least for two to three decades so it's difficult to say if yours are from the 80's or 90's or even earliest 00's without more clues.

I don't believe yours blades are fakes, they are pretty decent blades.
 
@mata_66 thanks for sharing that info. I read on the Wilkinson Sword site, that the German company Osberghaus taught Wilkinson how to make the stainless blade in the first instance anyway and then started making Wilkinson-branded blades from 1961.

I've gone through my stash of the white label Wilkinsons, and this is the sum of them.

First up is the White packet declaring Made in England, molded into plastic base on the back and printed on the blade.
Black printed wrapper, not marked made in England, the other details as pictured.

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Next are the other 4 variations that don't show where they are made. These were all plastic sealed, but they seem either older or more degraded than the Made in England blades I have (based on smell, glue deterioration, cardboard browning) which has made things a bit confusing.
The 3rd blade seems to match what is in the blister packet you pictured in #355

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In general the feel and sharpness is very similar to the 1960s Super Sword Edge I posted about in this thread. I'm able to get 10 very good shaves out of these, so I'm happy as I paid very little for these.

If anyone has more information on these variations would love to hear it.
 
The 3rd blade seems to match what is in the blister packet you pictured in #355

If anyone has more information on these variations would love to hear it.

I've tried to research further information based on the codes seen on your pics but I had little luck.
About the blister pictured in #355, I've seen the same cardboard hanger was used later, only the plastic dispenser is gone and the blades were sold in cardboard tucks:

wilkinson-classic-10pk.jpg

As you can see these were produced in Baddi, India by Gillette India Ltd, same blades sold today as "Gillette Wilkinson Sword".
The Baddi plant also produces 7 O'Clock Super Platinums and 7 O'Clock Permasharp blades among others.
The above pictured blades are dated 2014.

In 2002 Indian Shaving Products (ISP) which was the flagship company of Gillette in India, merged with Wiltech India Ltd (this was a blade and razors company set up in 1979 in technical collaboration with Wilkinson Sword U.K.) and became Gillette India Ltd.

I think it is safe to say Wilkinson Sword blades sold in Australia since the early 2000s were produced in India. Nothing bad about it because Indian Gillette Wilkinson Sword blades are among my favorite modern blades.
 
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