Razor and Brush HP

TRAVEL RAZORS

Some nice vintage pocket razors

We covered the Travalong in another article: today we take a look at a few other travel razors. Travel safety razors make interesting collectibles and are quite useable with modern razor blades.
Today's cavalcade covers five neat little travel razors, all made to take standard double edge blades.

We start with the most interesting of all: a neat, very well made, folding razor called the B+P Shaver.

Made by the Bigelow Parkin Co. of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, this neat folding razor was patented in 1921. The design was quite successful and was soon copied by other manufacturers.

The design is very ingenious and uses two folding finger grips, which can be seen here, folded over the top blade cover.
The next image shows the gold plated B+P razor with the finger grips open.

As can be seen from the photograph, the razor came either in a chrome plated version, or gold plated. It was supplied with a well made pouch of genuine leather.

After opening the finger grips, the blade holder can be accessed by flipping it open with a thumb.

Here's a better view of the open gold plated razor, ready to take a blade:

The hinges are clearly visible.
The whole razor has a very substantial feel, it is clearly a quality product and the remarkably good condition of these two examples attest to their build quality.
The next picture shows the chrome razor in its closed state, ready for use (there is no blade in the razors in the picture).

Nice and interestingly original design!

Our next travel razor is an equally interesting and unusual design: it is called the Dainteeshave.

According to the outstanding "Safety Razor Compendium", by Robert Waits (the most comprehensive and best researched safety razor reference work I have encountered), the Daintee razor was made by the Nelpin Manufacturing Company of Long Island City, NY. The razor was made in the 1950s and has a very unusual backplate, made to look like a car tail light reflector.

By pressing a button on the side of the razor, the top plate of the blade holder is released.

A standard blade is placed in the holder and the top plate replaced, smootly snapping into place. The blade is held securely and a fairly evident curve is applied to the blade by the geometry of the holder. The image below shows the top plate ready to be pushed down against the blade holder.

In spite of the rather odd red reflector cover, the closed razor looks quite stylish!

The next travel razor we have, is the ubiquitous Gillette Travel razor, which is basically a cut-down Gillette Tech. These short, three-piece razors were supplied by Gillette to thousands of companies that made small travel sets and can easily be found on eBay or at antiques shows for very little money and often, as is the case of the one I have, in an unused condition.

These are good razors. I have found that, even though the look identical, there have been several variants of the Gillette Travel razor and that some are mild razors, while others can be fairly aggressive. I guess Gillette may have modified the head geometry to match the characteristics of the blades that were in production at the time the razors were made.
My Travel set is from the early 1950s.

The assembled razor looks quite good, if not overly exciting...

Here's another view:

This one still has the paper insert where the blade is supposed to go.

These razors were widely copied by many manufacturers. Some copies were identical to the originals and can only be distinguished from the Gillette razor by the lack of Gillette trade marks and logos. Other manufacturers were a bit more creative and produced copies that, while very similar to the Gillette design, were different enough not to be exact clones. One of these is our next travel razor.

This little razor is German and is a contemporary of the Gillette that we just looked at. It came in a very similar pocket travel set:

The quality of the travel kit is a little below the quality of the American set, but the razor is at least as good as the Gillette.

In fact, the plating has withstood the effect of time better than the finish on the Gillette razor. Here's another view:

These nice razors are often sold for very low bids on eBay.
Let's take a look at the two razors side-by-side:

Neat little razors!

Our next travel razor is a little different and not as old as the previous ones.

I bought this razor in Bucarest, Rumania, during a business trip about 25 years ago. In those days, the shops in Bucharest had very little to offer, even to foreigners paying with hard currency. This little razor was one of the few things that I thought I could use back home.

The razor comes in a basic, but nice, plastic case. The handle is in two pieces and when assembled, the razor looks and feels like a full size, well balanced razor.

The finish is a little rough, but the razor is reasonably well made. I like the fact that it has a comb safety guard. I have seen German travel razors made in the 1950s, that look very similar to this one.

Here's another view:

And here it is next to the Gillette and the small German travel razor:

I like travel razors very much; they make good collectibles and are very undervalued by collectors and many can be found in mint or unused condition.

I hope you have enjoyed this brief look at some interesting and, in a couple of cases, rather unusual travel razors.

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