I've been looking around online this week to try to find out the exact production year of my recently acquired NEW short comb. I know they were made from the early 30s up to when the US entered WWII, but is there any way to find the exact year one was made? All I see are patent numbers and maybe a serial number. Any advice?
Apologies if you have already tried this. Have you tried? http://www.razorarchive.com/gillette-date-codes
No date codes, I'm afraid, so the best one can do to place it into a more accurate time period is to check the distinct visual characteristics, match with the Patent codes/Serial numbers that DO have dating periods (begin & ending), and get a relatively close era. (circa 19-- to 19---).
Since this model doesn't have a year code it is unfortunately, as far as I know, impossible to find the exact year it was made. Well, at least we know it was made either in the 30's or the 40's Since the last patent number is from 1932 that narrows it down a tiny bit. http://www.mr-razor.com/Rasierer/The NEW/The NEW.htm
I think that is probably one of the earlier NEWs. Not sure what the date range for the different variations are but the later ones had three patents above the USA stamp. The earliest ones had no patents.