Since I already had one Gillette, it only made sense for me to stick with Gillettes. What I didn't realize (until soon after I started) was the vast number of Gillettes there were. Old, NEW, NEW Improved, Goodwill, open comb (the ones with teeth), safety bar, Tech, TTO (twist to open), pre-war, war production, post-war, SS (Super Speed), adjustables...not to mention the variations within each type. Or maybe you'll get lucky and score a "hybrid", one made with a combination of old and new parts (Gillette was known for using leftover parts in newer models to save production costs)...
1946 Ranger Tech head on a 1947 Super Speed handle
How to wade through all the confusion? Research. And the Interwebz. Ah, a marvelous thing is the Interwebz. Here, you'll find the ShaveWiki, a personal site devoted to vintage Gillette safety razors, numerous Gillette date code sites, plus forums containing more information than you could ever need. You may have to register in order to view any posted images, but you'll also be able to ask any questions you have about a particular razor you might find. Which leads us to...
...where do you find these things? Well, eBay is a good place to start. Sure, some of the prices are inflated, but I've seen the same in second-hand shops and "antique stores". Here is where your research pays off. Say you have your eye on a post-war, ball-end Tech, but the guy wants $40 for it. Gee, awful steep, you think. Sure does look good, though, like it's never been used. But you'd have to want it real bad to pay that much. So, you go to your forum and search "Gillette ball end Tech" to see who's saying what about it. You'll be able to figure out what a decent price would be. Back to the auction site, you do a similar search. Find all the ball end Techs listed, starting with those ending the earliest; if nothing's interesting, try the newly listed ones, then the "Buy It Now" listings with the lowest priced listed first. If nothing still comes up, be patient. There will always be another that shows up. But as you'll soon see, things can get complicated at times.
Be wary of listings that might be questionable. The razor pictured above was listed as a "Super-rare '46 Super Speed!" But the Super Speed wasn't named as such until 1947. The '46 was a Ranger Tech. Images posted showed a no-notch center bar (as was also stated in the description); I knew beforehand that Gillette notched the center bar in 1948 so as to simplify loading the blade from their new dispenser. An image posted that showed an inside view of the base plate revealed there were no creases where the safety bar joins.
Took some digging, but I found that Gillette started using creased base plates sometime in 1947. But what about the handle? A 1946 Ranger has a smooth band just above the TTO knob. This one is checkered like the rest of the handle. More digging found that a 1947 SS had a flat "shoulder" milled into the neck where it joins the handle. So the handle had to at least be a 1948. It looked like a clean, solid razor, too, so I snatched it up.
Was it worth the $39 I paid for it? I think so.
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