I have 1. A W3 date code that I bought in old town Temecula CA for $9. It still gives me the best shaves of my life. I have tried FatBoys, Slims, an Aristocrat, a Futur, Weishi TTO, Slant, Merkur 12C but none of them perform as consistently as my SS. I do have a "new" razor on the way so I may need to edit this at a later date. We'll see
You are perfectly correct Dirty Dave, the razor itself took a back seat to the blades, because it was there that the dealers made the dollars. Carry that idea one step further and you can understand why Gillette and Shick stopped making these wonderful things and started to make the terrible cartridge razors. The problem with the double edge is that the blade is not proprietary and can be purchased from any of a world of different makers, thus providing an awful lot of competition making it impossible for Gillette to raise the price of the blade. So what they needed was a razor that took a blade only they could make, thus the cartridge razor was born. No one has ever, to my knowledge asked simple questions like: why is multiple blades better than one? why should I purchase only proprietary blades? I agree with you 100%.
1. Probably the reason is because the answer is that multi blades not better than just one blade. Only one blade is doing the cutting the others just pull your stubble. They do a good job at convincing the consumer that they are better so there is no need to raise the question. So I guess we are the revolutionary faction that knew the answers and seceded. 2. Maybe in the begining they were the only one selling the cartridges so there was no choice you had to buy their brand. Now you can get store brand for some of the razors but not all. So it is no longer a proprietary issue for some of the multi blade razor models. Back in the day when I shaved with cartridges I never bought the brand name I always bought the store brand as they were much cheaper. Raf
JB, This is getting off topic, but... I asked myself that question just about a year ago. I had an M3 and was down to my last cartridge. I was shaving and contemplating the performance of the M3 and the cost of the cartridges. The three blade cartridge shaved no better than a two blade cartridge I had several years ago. Those razors shaved no better than the old safety razors I had started shaving with several decades earlier. I also saw no reason to suspect that a four or five blade cartridge would offer me anything except a higher priced cartridge. The thought also crossed my mind that I saw the old DE blades for sale at places such as Wal-Mart and CVS. Somebody out there had to still be using DE razors, so there has to be a place where I could buy one. The grand irony of all of this is that I was determined to save money on shaving. A 10-pack of Personna's cost $1.56 at Wal-Mart. The M3 cartridges cost $20.00 for 10 cartridges. So I did the 21st century thing, I googled "safety razors" and found Merkur and several shaving sites. Fast forward a year and now I spend more than I ever dreamed of on shaving stuff and I have never been happier. I am happily discussing the merits of old Gillette razors with people whom I don't know and yet with whom feel a close kinship. We have a really cool hobby, here. Weird, eh? All I did was ask why buy cartridges? Three cheers for the internet. :happy088 :happy108
