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Vintage English Boar Travel Brush With Alum Block Inside

Alum Ladd

Could be most likely nutjob stuff
I picked up a nice 1948-50's shaving set last year. I primarily grabbed it because it had an English Aristocrat Junior No.48 included, exceptional for a shaving travel set.

Anyway, it had a very clean and usable/restorable small English boar brush included. It's unbranded, and except for place of manufacture and it being a No.4, it's pretty anonymous.
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As I was soaking and cleansing the knot I took a toothbrush to scrub off some ancient soap that had adhered decades ago to the ribbed red side bottom section. As I was scrubbing, the whole unit came loose. It was in fact an unscrewable bottom compartment. I had absolutely no idea that it had this feature until tonight.

It revealed this.
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I didn't really examine it closely, I thought it was just a plug of opaque heavy plastic. I was more concerned with getting it re-assembled without destroying the knot.

I had put it up on a thread asking for help in restoring the brush, so this was unexpected. Brother @LJS while reading the thread, said it looked like alum.

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I think he is right. The little alum cylinder is rounded from slight use, although it, like the brush itself does not appear to have been overly used.

Just a quirky little brush and feature that I have never heard of or seen before, and thought I would share.
 

EclipseRedRing

I smell like a Christmas pudding
Do you think the brush was sold with the alum inside? I have seen bits of soap stored inside similar handles and assumed they were put there by enterprising owners who realised the base could be removed. I wonder if there is any contemporary advertising where this is described as a feature of the brush, or of others like it. I suspect not, I have not seen any myself, but will have a hunt around.
 

Alum Ladd

Could be most likely nutjob stuff
Do you think the brush was sold with the alum inside? I have seen bits of soap stored inside similar handles and assumed they were put there by enterprising owners who realised the base could be removed. I wonder if there is any contemporary advertising where this is described as a feature of the brush, or of others like it. I suspect not, I have not seen any myself, but will have a hunt around.
The bottom has a purpose made screw compartment Richard. It's obviously not some ad hoc bottom that can be prised out.

The alum cylinder is precisely measured and fitted to a matching circular holder socket in the bottom. It appears to have been lightly used, based on the slight uneven rounding and wear of the alum cylinder at its top.
IMG_20250110_191445_696.jpg

Top view
IMG_20250110_211052_739.jpg

It looks to have been a feature of the brush as sold. As it was almost definitely used by the owner of the Aristocrat Junior and the set as a whole, it has a great feeling of authenticity and 'personality' to it.

As a fellow lover of vintage and historical items, and their usage with unknown yet present individuals, now forgotten, you may get my feeling of great pleasure from this little find.

I had no idea of this compartment until I embarked on it's restoration last night. What I took to be soap remnants in the screw handle must in fact be a whitish chemical after-effect of the alum crystals when wet on the plastic. They seem to have bleached the red chemical dye of the plastic bottom. Impossible to scrub off with a toothbrush like a usual ancient soap remnant.

I hope the thread in it's run, can dig some additional information up.

I have not seen anything like it.
 
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EclipseRedRing

I smell like a Christmas pudding
I wondered if the purpose of the screw on bottom was simply so that different coloured bases could be offered to provide a range of slightly different brushes. I have seen similar brushes with different coloured bases, although I agree the base could simply have been press fitted if it were not intended to be removed to offer a storage function, perhaps that would not have been watertight. I have also owned similar brushes where the base could not be unscrewed, I recall trying to remove the base to see if soap or alum was inside. It just seems to me that handle storage, or a concealed alum block, is the type of novel feature that would have been promoted in advertising to differentiate a product from the competition. It is a mystery for sure, the type of thing that gives as much enjoyment from researching it as from owning and using it 👍
 
Sneaky :sneaky2:

All sorts of ideas for a unique selling point in the dim dark ages before colour.

I have a screw based brush, but the amount of room in it is negligible, so it was most likely a spy brush, you know, for microfilm and such. :w00t: Another has a push on base, now it looks as though soap or alum could be located in it by the ribs that would hold said substance secure. Yet it has never had anything in it.

My suggestion? huck that block out and get a roll of microfilm :w00t: I've seen so called spy razors for sale *cough* before, why not a spy brush? :a33:
 

Alum Ladd

Could be most likely nutjob stuff
Sneaky :sneaky2:

All sorts of ideas for a unique selling point in the dim dark ages before colour.

I have a screw based brush, but the amount of room in it is negligible, so it was most likely a spy brush, you know, for microfilm and such. :w00t: Another has a push on base, now it looks as though soap or alum could be located in it by the ribs that would hold said substance secure. Yet it has never had anything in it.

My suggestion? huck that block out and get a roll of microfilm :w00t: I've seen so called spy razors for sale *cough* before, why not a spy brush? :a33:
Well it's got No.4 written on it, so it belonged to 004?

I might have found Ian Fleming's travel shaving set.
 
After recently getting into the DE wet shaving scene, I asked my Father if he had ever used a styptic pencil growing up.

He told me that when he was growing up (in Northern Ireland - he was born in 1941, so let's say 1959-ish at shaving age) that the shave brushes sold unscrewed at the bottom to expose alum which you would then put on any shaving nick.

Obviously a very common thing back in the day.
 
Sneaky :sneaky2:

All sorts of ideas for a unique selling point in the dim dark ages before colour.

I have a screw based brush, but the amount of room in it is negligible, so it was most likely a spy brush, you know, for microfilm and such. :w00t: Another has a push on base, now it looks as though soap or alum could be located in it by the ribs that would hold said substance secure. Yet it has never had anything in it.

My suggestion? huck that block out and get a roll of microfilm :w00t: I've seen so called spy razors for sale *cough* before, why not a spy brush? :a33:

Well it's got No.4 written on it, so it belonged to 004?

I might have found Ian Fleming's travel shaving set.
Your discussion of spy brushes and Ian Flemming's travel razor got me wondering if there was any evidence that Ian had a travel razor, and if he did, that said razor would be your aristocrat junior. I decided to search the darkest corners of spy web. Imagine my surprise when I came across this photo. If you look closely at the object in his left hand, I'm pretty sure that you'll agree, its the genuine article.
IanB.png
 
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