L'Essor - Oooh la la!

Managed to get myself a L'Essor for $20-something and it just arrived this past week.

First impression picking it up from it's box: Wow! This thing is solid - and quirky! Feels amazing!
The blade loading mechanism is so simple and elegant that it's almost pure genius.

Before we continue check out my one minute video here showing off the razor and its loading mechanism a bit:


As you can see the original wedge/hollow ground blade is in pretty poor condition - but the good thing is that this razor will take a modern SE blade!

The razor itself is in near mint condition and the video/photos below shows it before I've had a chance to really clean it up.

History
- Waits has this to say about L'Essor:


- Directly translated "L'Essor" means "The Rise"

- The logo "CSF"/CDSF on the box is not L'Essor-specific as it stands for "Chamber Syndicale Des Couteliers Detaillants Francais" (Chamber Cutlery Retailers Union of France).

- L'Essor was sold through a number of various brands/companies (Gastal, Perfecta, etc) so that makes it inherently difficult to get an accurate/complete representation of the different models that were produced.

- L'Essor made both SEs and DEs - they even made one of the very first adjustable razors,

- I have little information as far as dating goes but based on design I'd wager it was made in the 1920s-1930's.

And, that's really all I could find. If anyone has something else to add/correct as far as history goes I'd love to hear it so I can add/update.

Anyway, on to some photos of my actual razor





Loaded with a modern GEM SE blade:


....it has a rather healthy blade gap....


The handle comes off so it would be possible to put on another handle should you want to do that - even though I don't see why as this handle is amazing


And that's it for the mighty L'Essor - until I get a chance to actually shave with it

 

Heck of a score

 

AND it came with a free Thiers-Issard straight #17 dating back to around 1910 - but even without that I'd be thrilled for just this razor. Can't wait to try shaving with it.

 

Nice Score.

 

That is a very cool razor. It looks like it might accept a Rolls blade with the guard removed.

 

Nice find!

 

that handle on a shovel head?

 

Would look a little bit like this:

 

is that shopped, or did you put the two together?
if memory serves, wasn't you who said the 24's handle was a little small?

 

I put them together "in real life" - I am far from that good at photoshop
The fit is a bit loose though not sure if it would be enough of a solid fit to shave with.
But yes, I did feel that that handle is too small - this could had been a good solution.

 

the original may shave fine.
but if an experiment is in order,a small lockwasher may do the trick.