Gillette New Biased Pin & Short Pin ... Why?

Were some of you guys shooting pool down at the Billiards Emporium during history class? :rolleyes: These changes were implemented before WWII.


Shit, yes! You're actually right! History class was Friday morning and that clashed with the second hand record stalls down on Dewsbury market.

... er, yes, but the razors themselves are reputed to be 1939-1945. Wartime. Granted, these blades (and their patents) are well before that, right at the beginning of the 1930s so a long time before, but their effects would have been far reaching. How many shapes and styles of blade existed at the beginning of the 1940s? Personally, I would have thought we were all settled on the universal pattern seen on the Gillette Blues.

... which doesn't go anywhere to answering why these razors were produced, unless they were indeed produced WAY earlier than we've guessed and did in fact correspond to the myriad of spoiler designs and rather than a universal blade, here was a universal top cap.

I'll have to wake up my B&B account.
 
Here's an advert from 1940:

s-l1600.jpg


... where we can see that Gillette's New whether it be long slot, twin slot, short pin or biased pin, it would fit all these blades.

Granted, the round pin New (with the lateral tabs) produced about the same time would only have fitted Gillette blades (like the Gillette Blue with the universal cutout) and not in any of these blades due to the diamond shape rather than round shape. Buy a GIllette razor, use Gillette blades.

... and so I return to my thoughts about (a) these bias pin/short pin razors being Service Kit; (b) the plethora of blade shapes and styles. Put them together and you have a razor with a top cap that has the most minimal amount of pin to accept the widest choice of blade without the pin size/position tripping up over the razor design.

I've PM'd MacDaddy. Thanks @TobyC
 
Here's an advert from 1940:

s-l1600.jpg


... where we can see that Gillette's New whether it be long slot, twin slot, short pin or biased pin, it would fit all these blades.

Granted, the round pin New (with the lateral tabs) produced about the same time would only have fitted Gillette blades (like the Gillette Blue with the universal cutout) and not in any of these blades due to the diamond shape rather than round shape. Buy a GIllette razor, use Gillette blades.

... and so I return to my thoughts about (a) these bias pin/short pin razors being Service Kit; (b) the plethora of blade shapes and styles. Put them together and you have a razor with a top cap that has the most minimal amount of pin to accept the widest choice of blade without the pin size/position tripping up over the razor design.

I've PM'd MacDaddy. Thanks @TobyC
Amazing, and insane! You had to know what you were doing when you needed to get a "pack of blades"!
 
Well. if you aren't sharp enough to realize the critical dates involved here then it would be foolish on my part to assume you would be able to deduce the answers from the bio I linked.
We are all very familiar with Gaisman, and personally I feel the name of the company should have been changed to Gaisman, or Gaisman/Gillette as they were clearly his razors and blades that they were selling. But being aware of the general Gillette history timeline doesn't tell us squat about the small pin razors. You're trolling.
 
Unsatisfactory. We're there already ...

I get that and I get what you said above (the same thing), but I don't see that as related to the design of the pins on this cap. Yes, there was a myriad of blade designs and patents out there, the point of which was to get around other patents or patent new designs to prevent others from doing so. In all, to spoil things for the competition.

This cap seems (to me) to be the diametric opposite to that - in many ways, it's a skeleton key. It's a cap which will work for ANY blade out there with the absolute minimal design.

Which brings us to why? Why, when Gillette were so fierce about designing razors to specifically NOT fit the blades of the competition and ONLY fit their blades. Yes, these caps will fill Gillette blades, but so would the twin slot and the long slot. I think we have to assume the above, that it is a universal cap for all blades ... irrespective of manufacturer.

But again, like a 5 year old ... WHY?
 
People, it was ALL for legal reasons.


...Then something amazing happens on November 18, 1929. Gaisman files to amend his patent that was awarded back in February 7, 1928. Ostensibly, he needed to change a couple minor details! What he does, without changing any drawings, is rename a few structures, like “holes” become “apertures” and “pins” become “studs”. All this seems innocuous enough. However, he adds 15 paragraphs of additional claims going from 8 claims to 23 claims. In doing so, he lays claim to any stud that is “non-cylindrical” in nature. Thereby he would own any blade design with an aperture or positioning hole that is non-circular. Remember, GSRC's old-type blade has circular type holes. Gaisman does not claim that. But, under the new application diamond shaped holes would be owned by Gaisman. Also, it appears that GSRC's horizontal slot in their blade, to mate with the razor's blocking bar, is now off limits too...

There is the answer.

 
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