Has anyone here ever seen a smooth handled knurled ball old type Gillette before? I'm looking at one and can't find any info on it. No patent numbers just has the diamond Gillette logo and made in USA on underside.
For 27 bucks I might get it. Very unique. I dunno. I don't want a Franken razor though. It might be hard to hang on to shaving eh?
No idea. Never seen a smooth-handle one. Could be a version of the early Canadian-made one....or could be a Franken. Hopefully someone will come along and provide some more info. It looks neat though.
Looking at the pic closer, it looks like someone just slipped a sheath over the regular handle. There's a seam right above the ball end.
Unless someone was able to positively ID it as an actual Gillette product (an exceedingly rare one, no doubt), I'd pass on it at that price. Then again, I can't imagine someone going through the trouble of doing such a nice job replacing a split blowout. Maybe the handle's from some long forgotten competitor. If you like the shave of the Old Type head, and you could talk them down to $10-15, that might sound more reasonable?
Yeah I'm waiting on it, I might do as you say in a few days after some more recon. It is an awfully nice repair job. If that's what it is.
Indeed it is, if that's what happened. It looks like it's SUPPOSED to look like it does, from this angle.
On second thought...I think I see a touch of residual gold lacquer in the bottom groove of the knob. IF that's what's there (that's the LAST place it should be worn down to brass), then it's a Frankie. A well done Frankie, but a Frankie. Someone would have went through a lot of trouble on this one, even polishing down a worn knob to nickel so it'd better match the tube...handle...old radio aerial...whatever it is. Pure speculation, I admit, but that spot of what looks like gold lacquer makes me leery.
The more I stare at it, the more the handle looks like it was cut from an old tire pressure gauge. Who says old safety razors ain't fun. Let us know how it goes!
The head and ballend are just press fit to the tube section on the original, so it would be easy enough to replace the tube section. They split so often perhaps someone just happened to have the right size tube stock and made a repair. No way to know for certain of course, but it would be an easy job with the right I.D. tube. Looks good to my eye, whatever story may be...I'd offer a tenner for it.
I'm voting that it's been modified too, FWIW. I thought about doing something exactly like this for a NEW I have with a crack. Figured I could take it to a tool and die shop and have it done easily enough. I could be wrong, though. I say you buy it and satisfy our curiosity!
