nosedog
Member
Quoth gthomas04 in the November 2001 Acquisitions thread:
Perhaps this thread can cover some basic SE terminology. I remember not having a clue at one stage. Perhaps this has been covered in another thread, but I didn't find it (but see links at bottom of this post). Besides, what's a forum without copious amounts of repeated information?
Single Edge razors are "the original safety razor" (see The Original Safety for a forum devoted to them). I don't know the chronology, but it seems they precede Double Edge razors.
The American Safety Razor Company (ASR) produced the quintessential SE razor: the GEM 1912. So "GEM" is a brand name, "1912" is the model name. The exact same razor was also produced with the "Ever-Ready" brand (yes, the same brand name that currently live on batteries). I think there was another brand name as well. And I'm pretty sure that the Ever-Ready company bought ASR at some stage, just like Proctor & Gamble (P&G) bought Gillette at some stage.
I presume 1912 represents the year that this razor began production, but they were manufactured for at least a couple of decades. There were several variants, typically with different handles.
The concept is much simpler than DE razors. SE razors take a single-edged blade, which is rigid and typically used for scraping paint, making model aeroplanes and cutting up frogs. DE blades are bendy and the razor must bend the blade to a chosen angle. Different DE models bend to different angles, and some are of course adjustable. The GEM 1912 has a dead-simple flip-top mechanism: flip it up, put the blade in, flip it down. Because the blade is stiff and heavy it feels different on the face compared to a DE blade; more like a cutthroat (I'm told).
Anyway, over the decades until about the 60s or 70s, ASR (American Safety Razor co, remember?), continued to release various models of SE razors, but I guess their success declined and they got out of the market. Gillette "won", and DE became the only thing most people knew, then cartridges, etc. and here we are. It beggars belief that we have a modern DE manufacturer in Merkur (to say nothing of the others) that are content to produce dozens of DE razor models but are too damned lazy to produce a SE model. SE may have lost out, but traditional shaving is now in a revival period, and the SE approach to shaving is perfectly sound. It's not like a flawed model that has no place in the modern world. But I digress...
Anyway, the GEM 1912 is the poster-child of SE shaving. The blades are available from Connaught Shaving and a couple of other places. There are a few brands of them. The ones I use are marked "GEM", so I guess there's a link to the past there. They must be produced by ASR, which is also the manufacturer of at least some Personna DE blades. There are also "Ted Pella" blades which are PFTE (teflon) coated. I don't even know if those are actually different from what I have.
Apart from the GEM 1912, there is:
* GEM Lather Catcher (LC), which I believe is an earlier model
* GEM Micromatic Open Comb (MMOC), a real aggressive bastard, twist to open
* GEM Micromatic Clog-Pruf (MMCP), gentler than MMOC, probably rare
* GEM G-Bar, starting to get ugly
There were others as well, but this was the golden era of metal razors with nice patterns and so forth. The later models were plasticky and don't arouse much discussion on forums.
A word of warning: I am NOT an expert in this domain and did NO research for this article. I've soaked up a bunch of info in B&B threads, the B&B wiki, the original safety razor forum mentioned earlier, and goodness knows where else, let it stew, and regurgitated it here. I could not honestly vouch for most of the facts presented above. If you knew nothing about SE razors and read the above, you now know something. But don't go boasting your knowledge in educated company or you may be made to look like a goose!
Please issue corrections and additional information in replies.
Links to existing P&C threads:
* http://www.paste-and-cut.com.au/f4/single-edge-razors-305/
* http://www.paste-and-cut.com.au/f4/gem-1912-a-144/
Perhaps this thread can cover some basic SE terminology. I remember not having a clue at one stage. Perhaps this has been covered in another thread, but I didn't find it (but see links at bottom of this post). Besides, what's a forum without copious amounts of repeated information?
Single Edge razors are "the original safety razor" (see The Original Safety for a forum devoted to them). I don't know the chronology, but it seems they precede Double Edge razors.
The American Safety Razor Company (ASR) produced the quintessential SE razor: the GEM 1912. So "GEM" is a brand name, "1912" is the model name. The exact same razor was also produced with the "Ever-Ready" brand (yes, the same brand name that currently live on batteries). I think there was another brand name as well. And I'm pretty sure that the Ever-Ready company bought ASR at some stage, just like Proctor & Gamble (P&G) bought Gillette at some stage.
I presume 1912 represents the year that this razor began production, but they were manufactured for at least a couple of decades. There were several variants, typically with different handles.
The concept is much simpler than DE razors. SE razors take a single-edged blade, which is rigid and typically used for scraping paint, making model aeroplanes and cutting up frogs. DE blades are bendy and the razor must bend the blade to a chosen angle. Different DE models bend to different angles, and some are of course adjustable. The GEM 1912 has a dead-simple flip-top mechanism: flip it up, put the blade in, flip it down. Because the blade is stiff and heavy it feels different on the face compared to a DE blade; more like a cutthroat (I'm told).
Anyway, over the decades until about the 60s or 70s, ASR (American Safety Razor co, remember?), continued to release various models of SE razors, but I guess their success declined and they got out of the market. Gillette "won", and DE became the only thing most people knew, then cartridges, etc. and here we are. It beggars belief that we have a modern DE manufacturer in Merkur (to say nothing of the others) that are content to produce dozens of DE razor models but are too damned lazy to produce a SE model. SE may have lost out, but traditional shaving is now in a revival period, and the SE approach to shaving is perfectly sound. It's not like a flawed model that has no place in the modern world. But I digress...
Anyway, the GEM 1912 is the poster-child of SE shaving. The blades are available from Connaught Shaving and a couple of other places. There are a few brands of them. The ones I use are marked "GEM", so I guess there's a link to the past there. They must be produced by ASR, which is also the manufacturer of at least some Personna DE blades. There are also "Ted Pella" blades which are PFTE (teflon) coated. I don't even know if those are actually different from what I have.
Apart from the GEM 1912, there is:
* GEM Lather Catcher (LC), which I believe is an earlier model
* GEM Micromatic Open Comb (MMOC), a real aggressive bastard, twist to open
* GEM Micromatic Clog-Pruf (MMCP), gentler than MMOC, probably rare
* GEM G-Bar, starting to get ugly
There were others as well, but this was the golden era of metal razors with nice patterns and so forth. The later models were plasticky and don't arouse much discussion on forums.
A word of warning: I am NOT an expert in this domain and did NO research for this article. I've soaked up a bunch of info in B&B threads, the B&B wiki, the original safety razor forum mentioned earlier, and goodness knows where else, let it stew, and regurgitated it here. I could not honestly vouch for most of the facts presented above. If you knew nothing about SE razors and read the above, you now know something. But don't go boasting your knowledge in educated company or you may be made to look like a goose!
Please issue corrections and additional information in replies.
Links to existing P&C threads:
* http://www.paste-and-cut.com.au/f4/single-edge-razors-305/
* http://www.paste-and-cut.com.au/f4/gem-1912-a-144/
Last edited:
