So not exactly case related but while searching out cases I came across confirmation of a regional rollout for the Micromatic. It begins in late September 1930 in Maryland, Pennsylvania, and New York exclusively, reaches the west coast in February and continues into July 1931 with rollouts in the Midwest. Now curiously I still don't find ads for local distributors only the big splash ASR ads which suggest the razors are being stocked. Here are a couple.
This from 1939-40. At this time the Streamlined sets were still being offered at slightly higher prices. The Clog-Pruf appears in ads beginning June 1940.
Mine is the same or close to the jewel/travel case above from 1937. These remind me of my 1939 Schick Type E case with the 20 year guarantee script on the underside of the case.
They were tough years in the dirty thirties and the rise of WW2 & Chaos all over Europe. Sales were hurting? Great ads @jmudrick and really enjoy the thoughts of those days to live.
Yup. I think 49 cents was the bottom for Gillette but the production costs for the Micromatics must have been a lot higher than the New.
The average wage in the 30s was $1268 which translates down to about 68 cents an hour for a 40 hour week.
Just bought a used Everready streamline for a lot more than that and was thinking I got a good deal, we are in inflation times for razors possibly and a lot of other items.
The cardboard NRA logo Micromatic set was marketed at 25 cents in 1934. ASR claimed 6 million sales 1930-33, another 1 million 1933-34. ASR revenues were quite strong during this period compared to Gillette which was still struggling to meet the numbers promised stockholders
They must of been losing money on every razor, they were after the blade sales for the long haul and give Gillette a run for the money is my best guess. Their GEM TTO micromatics were ahead of Gillette TTO razor public offerings by approximately 3 yrs from my limited research not to say Gillette did not come out with a good products and they had excellent TTO razors to compete against GEM razors finally.
Interesting history about the first TTO, my information from Waits book about razor history is indicating patents in 1929&30 for the Micromatic and not sure if production tooling is ramping up for the public yet, but we all know how successful the razor was and they sold millions of the Micromatics. Some of the ads you are showing are mentioning available in 1930, I'm getting confusing cross information, I do know there seems to be this mad rush for TTO razor by other MFG's and GEM beat most with a solid product. https://books.google.ca/books?id=4oX3BgAAQBAJ&pg=PA428&dq=gem+razor&hl=en&sa=X&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q=gem razor&f=false Waits razor book.
The Micromatic TTO patent was applied for August 1929, the razor announced to the public in August 1930 days after the patent was approved. The head and blade were first represented in an earlier patent applied for and approved in 1929. Regional rollout apparently began in the fall of 1930 in limited markets (described above) after extensive test marketing earlier in the year. The first of several Segal patents was applied for in January 1929 and approved July 1931 with the first razors released with patients pending. The earliest ad I find for Segal is April 1931 but the lawsuit which Gillette filed against Segal indicates the first razors were manufactured before the end of 1930.
