I bought these items from a Military Surplus store over twenty years ago. They were represented to me as WWII military issue. Anyone have any knowledge of them?
Since they could both be bought at retail as well, the Military Surplus store can't say that for sure unless the packages have some sort of indication or they have proof they obtained them from the military.
All I can add is that I shaved with a DOT this morning (it was not super pleasant). I'm guessing it's a '40s vintage blade, but could be '50s, I suppose. As far as military issue, my guess is that Gillette had the lock on that since they did a number of kits for the military. So, the blades at least would/should be Gillette-made. IIRC Lifebuoy and the Colgate could be the right era, but again, no way to prove military.
Unfortunately, it was over twenty years ago that I bought them and the store is no longer in existence.
Gillette did have the bulk of military business but they weren't the only ones that sold under contract to the military. GEM and Clix are two others that come to mind. GEM had some soft-roll-case military sets very similar to the Gillette soft-roll-case military sets. Clix had plastic handle Tech-type razors in plastic hard cases.
If I remember correctly (And Jody probably knows more than me) but most of the Gillette WWII issues were black techs which were basically just the razor, small mirror, and enough room for some blades, they didn't bother including soap tins like the WWI officers kits. I have heard of genuine kits having nickel plating and fat handled techs but not sure how common they were.
Pretty much spot on except for the mirror. They got cheap in WWII and unlike WWI, didn't provide a mirror. At least, not as part of the razor/blades/case anyway. The handles were either plastic or metal. Some of them had a black metal head-cap with a black metal guard while some of them had a black metal head-cap with a nickel-plated metal guard.