It interests me that most older razors sold are gillette, there seem to be two reasons for this, mainly being there abundance and secondly everyone knows what they are.
I have been looking at germany recently, and they made some brilliant razors, Rotbart and Apolo spring to mind, they made adjustables TTO's etc. not forgettign vintage murkers.
I myself look at gillettes with love but wonder if I am missing out on some good kit.
I might try and aquire some of these less well known razors.
The big thing is that Gillette has had 90%+ market share in shaving for decades - often swallowing up national brands like 7 o'clock, Rotbart, etc to maintain that - if 9 in 10 razors sold in 1930 were Gillette, 9 in 10 of the surviving razors will be Gillette too...
There's also the "My dad shaved with one of those" nostalgia thing: probably a lot of us - myself included - would agree with that statement. My father's Aristocrat Jr. is one of my most sentimentally valuable possessions. The fundamental reason for me winding up as part of the "internet shaving community", which would have seemed a bizarre idea to me a year ago, frankly, was my decision to acquire another Gillette twist-to-open so that I could put the AJ into a dignified semi-retirement. Enter the Fatboy, followed by a Slim and a flared Rocket; the last mentioned proved to be the perfect successor. I've got the Gillette thing out of my system now, but the TTO mechanism delights me just as much now as it did when I was a kid.
The big thing is that Gillette has had 90%+ market share in shaving for decades - often swallowing up national brands like 7 o'clock, Rotbart, etc to maintain that - if 9 in 10 razors sold in 1930 were Gillette, 9 in 10 of the surviving razors will be Gillette too...
Have a look here, contains loads of gillettes but other adjustables as well including apollo:
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