recently though, ive become extremely interested in the OLD old safety razors; those "lather catcher" style razors that look like a question mark when you lay them on their side. the intricate artwork, the FULL blade exposure, and nothing can beat the sound of what i can only describe as the echo of the scraping of the whiskers off due to the less solid design of these early instruments of grooming.
ive acquired around 10 of these razors to date and all of them are in my rotation, being used with single edge blades. originally, some of these razors were used with what are called "wedge blades", basically smaller sections of a straight that would, of course, have to be honed and stropped to mantain their edge. these wedge blades however were the same size as early and modern single edge blades....
which leads to the crux of this topic...
here is a picture of an early ever ready razor in the "lather catcher" style i referred to (pic c/o pauldog)
these were manufactured around 1905 and as late as 1910, and early on took the wedge blade i described, but later on after the entrance of the single edge blade (which at first ALSO had to be re-sharpened), was used with that instead.
moving along...
this is a picture of a late 1800s GEM cutlery razor i purchased off of ebay not long ago:
it rests next to an early 1920s ever ready rear loading model (which also takes SE blades). note how the heads appear to be similar in size. i mean, why not, a razor (the 1905 ever ready) was modeled after ones before it, and the 1905 ever ready was able to take SE blades, right?
WRONG
it appears safety razors PRE-1900 could only in fact TAKE WEDGE BLADES. i tried to insert a SE blade into the GEM and it slid right out.... so i tried it in the 1888 kampfe bros. star i just got as well.....slid right out.
i then took the actual wedge blade that came with the 1888 kampfe to do a measurement test: the wedge blade is BARELY, and i mean BARELY bigger than the single edge blade. also, be advised, the runner guards on the sides of the head to guide in the blade are angled much sharper than on later models, which also leads me to believe that as time went on, the size of the wedge blade gradually decreased.
so there you have it. i now have to learn how to sharpen this damn wedge blade so i can use these razors. son of a b.
