These never come up for sale. Just sold on eBay. Seller originally listed it for $25,000 BIN. Then changed to auction format. I was glad because I wanted to see a true market value.

I had no idea this existed.

very cool..

What gorgo2 said. Way cool though. Wonder how rare they really are?

And here I thought the Techmatic was that band razor thing. This one is coo, a DE injector. Imagine that.

Herm

SOTD




Here’s what I know (or think I know)...

Searching for history on the Techmatic the only thing I was able to find was a hypothesis that only a few sets were built for Gillette executives to test before decision would be made to mass produce and market - and that the model then was abandoned prematurely.

If this hypothesis holds true, I think the main explanation is that both the razor and not least the reusable blade injector system were overengineered and way too complicated/expensive. And importantly, that Gillette at the same time came up with a much more clever idea: The ingenious disposable blade dispensers which started to come out in the late 1940s with most Gillette model sets. With these Gillette was able for the next decades to continue with standard TTO razors rather than this complicated razor construction.

But the sad collateral damage was that the few produced Techmatic razors, beautiful as they were, were relegated to the executive drawers of Gillette memorable failures.

Only 5 specimens are confirmed in existence today. Of these Matt Pisarcik at Razor Emporium owns a golden hued one (shown below) looking like a true prototype, whereas the other 4 seem like more production ready models.

Of these four 2 razors are documented as part of full sets (of which one is the one pictured in mr-razor in its fantastic bright blue case), whereas 2 other razors are without case - one of these sits with a famous collector in the UK and then there is this one. In addition to these four razors only a couple of loose injectors/blade loaders are known to exist, as far as I know.

However, the 4 production ready models are not identical. This particular specimen thus holds discernible differences from the gorgeous blue-cased one shown in mr-razor: It has no Gillette markings or diamond logo on the baseplate, and it lacks the ‘1’ and ‘2’ on the top cap which the razor in mr-razor has. And a third difference to the blue cased razor that I spotted is that the knob has thinner side edges. I think my specimen may be the one pictured here:



This is the one owned by Matt Pisarcik:

Amazing on so many levels...

I know of two additional complete sets. They are in the hands of the Quality Control department at Gillette/P&G. I was in negotiations to get one via a trade but the other party at P&G got cold feet and turned into a less than reliable person. I guess that’s what happens when you have to deal with corporate. My failure cause I couldn’t make it happen. oh well!!

Thanks Glenn, great additional info. Wow. I would die to get that bright blue case, without a doubt the most gorgeous case Gillette ever made!

Here’s a few more pics of my lucky addition.

Great acquisition for you. Congratulations!! I believe you got it for an excellent price too. I was holding out for one with a beautiful blue case. But I guess I’ll be waiting forever. Lol.

Very cool and unusual!

..Incidentally - I was just playing around with one of injectors and it spit out an S2 date code blade - so 1947 should be confirmed as the production year of the razor too.

very cool..

beautiful..

Back in 2012 at the height of my collecting empire - lol - I was able to hold one of these. That's as close as I was ever able to get to one. It was for sale by a guy in Florida, but I couldn't meet the $1200 asking price and he wouldn't trade for any of my NOS rarities either. And he's none of the 5 collectors known to own one either so I'm guessing that makes 6 known examples? I don't know if he ever sold it or parted with it and if it's 1 of the known 5...

Interesting! Could well be...

I think that as we try to count these rarities there obviously are likely to be more specimens out there of a certain razor than we are able to account for by reading shaving websites. Those which are never shared with the vintage community but sit in drawers with reclusive collectors or sit with regular folk who don’t know that ‘old uncle Bob’s razor’ is actually a rarity.

Do you remember the guy’s name?

Unfortunately I don't. I know our initial email exchanges are on my PC but it's been dead for a couple of years now. I thought it was the power supply so I bought a new one, installed it and still nothing. Won't even power on. Next guess is the motherboard is fried. Lots and lots of shaving stuff and history on there. The only reason I haven't thrown it in the trash. lol

You just have to remove the hard drive and install an adapter card in a new computer and attach the old drive as like an G: data drive. Use file explorer to get what you want off of it. Then load those files to a cloud drive would be my suggestion. I love Google drive.

Rhodium, or really well done nickel?