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Post by mjclark on Jun 5, 2014 0:39:13 GMT -6
I just went to put a GEM Double Life blade in an OCMM and of course it won't fit! The Double Life is perfectly rectangular with no cutouts, meaning that it fits the 1924 perfectly and the shovelhead's side retaining clips hold the blade. But the OCMM has a bump inside the head so that the Double Life won't lay flat. I also have some NOS GEM Micromatic blades which have the familiar central hole that the OCMM bump matches.
So I'm guessing that the introduction of holes in the blades coincided with the introduction of the Micromatic in the '30s, the idea being that only GEM's new blades would work with this razor.
Although it still works, the side cutouts in later blades also make these blades wobbly in the 1924, so was this to encourage people to switch to later models?
It also seems that those Double Lifes have a different grind and are made from a different composition of carbon steel to the later blades. In the 1924 they do not initially shave quite as close as the modern blades but give a very smart and extremely long lasting shave. 36 hours on, my beard regrowth with the Double Life is still an SAS and smarter than 18 hours on with a modern SE blade.
Of course Valet pulled the cutout trick too so that only their proprietary blades would fit, but prior to that were men in the 1920s really despining GEM blades to fit their Valets? Or were there other brands of unspined blade available?
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Post by PJGH on Jun 5, 2014 3:46:04 GMT -6
Very plausable ...
Curiously, my Micromatic Open Comb came with a couple of Ever Ready/Corrux blades just as you describe: rectangular, no holes or cut-outs. It never occurred to me that they simply would not fit into the Micromatic.
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Post by drumzalot on Jun 5, 2014 19:19:55 GMT -6
I've wondered about this too. Old vintage blades have never worked for me I guess time has dulled them.
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