...have $5 burning a hole in your pocket, and a beard wrapped around your face that you are just dying to get rid of. So you walk into your local general store and you spend that $5 on a fancy triple silver plated Gillette Safety Razor! You had no idea that 111 years later, some fella in Mississippi would own your fancy triple silver plated Gillette Safety Razor, but he didn't use it. No, he kept it proudly on display in a cabinet. A cabinet not in his outhouse, nor even in his new fancy indoor bathroom. No sir, it's in his living room. For anyone to see and admire. 111 years ago, you were just lucky to have $5 to purchase a razor. This nut job has several razors, including yours, in a display cabinet just sitting there, begging to be used for it's intended purpose once again. This is one of the few sets I kept from my hardcore Gillette collecting days. The case is considered in very fine condition considering its age. No rips or tears in the leather. Only a couple of minor scuffs. Some slight fraying to in the liner where it covers the hinges. The blade boxes immaculate. The razor covered in 111 year old tarnish but in perfect condition: no bent teeth, no cracks or hairline fractures in the handle. The shipper box has seen better days, missing its green money-like labels on one end and one side of the box top. But look closely at the top label... Notice the printing errors? KING in the King C Gillette signatures is spelled KNIG! Oops!
VERY COOL PIECE...........................USE it Better yet, it's defective ! Send to me for proper disposal
Yes, I had a fine 1914 bell-end Aristocrat set. I found the pics of it the other day on my old PC hard drives and will eventually update my old thread about it with the pics since the old pic links are long dead.
I have a 1908 but not near that good of shape. Thanks for the razor porn! Mississippi people rock ! ( From Greenville myself you know)
And this whole time I thought that was actually his signature...there is no way he signed his own signature wrong so that tells me it is marketing. I wonder who actually did the signing now?
Nothing wrong with the signature. Just a slightly unusual way to write the lower case n. Compared to other specimens it's almost identical.
Example. King's signature did change over time from that appearing on the early patent docs. Sent from my Google Chromebook Pixel (2015) using Tapatalk
Compared to other specimens, it's certainly not common that what looks like a lowercase N, occurs before a lowercase and dotted I. Achim, aka Mr Razor has noted this before as well, as has Len, aka Oldguy - 2 very well known and respected collectors of all things Gillette. Whether it is or isn't an error, it's certainly an interesting find because it's uncommon.
You must indeed have been well off ... $5 in 1910 is worth over $136 in today's money (inflation calculator only went back to 1913). Union wages were around $0.30/hr. And we complain about the price of Gillette razors today. Great find and thanks for the pics!
My Grandfather used the 1910 single ring razor and was handed down to me, it is also my Dads birth year razor. It was told to me that he got it when my Dad was born. Sadly I don't have the case for it.
very nice set, Jody. Are you sure, that the outer shipper is original to this set? I know the Knig instead of King signature only from 1906 and 1907: http://www.mr-razor.com/Rasierer/Old Type/1906 Single Ring from Dhilip Kumar.JPG http://www.mr-razor.com/Rasierer/Old Type/1907 Knig Gillette Single Ring Set from Brent Adair.jpg
Hi Achim! I can't confirm and have no way of doing so, that it is original to the set but it came with the set when I purchased it. I didn't buy the box separately. Of course seeing your earlier sets now I would think mismatched as well, which would be very strange considering they came together and makes me wonder that if they are mismatched, how such a thing happened during 111 years, and even specifically between 1906 and 1910. Maybe during those four years, the owner purchased two different sets and got the boxes mixed up or something happened to the first set they purchased but they kept the box? So many questions now. lol Side note, I notice your sets have the SHARP and DULL blade boxes where as mine are both the GILLETTE blade boxes. Do we know when these changed?
Does the serial on the shipper match the razor? Actually the shipper says triple silver plate, this was used before the set numbers (No 460 in this case) were introduced in 1906.
