Wilkinson Sword Blades - Codes and Designs

Fantastic, very interesting and educational thread. I have had the good fortune thanks to Messrs Dodgy and NotTheStig, of trying some of these old English Wilkie Blades and each one has delivered a fabulous shave. I was also lucky enough to acquire a box of 200 like that pictured above from the bay a couple of years ago. Probably the best blades I've ever used.
 
Hiya,

Bogeyman said:
Expand a little on your opinion that the different Chromium versions are not equal.

Ok, I will mention a couple thoughts on old Wilkinsons, murky as I am when it comes to certainties. I know I've shaved with at least three blades with 'chromium' associated with em in some way and they were all different. Matter of fact, I think Big G has some with Chromium+ on the blade that he likes a lot.

Maybe I can give you guys my take on the Light Brigades and what I think they are. There's three different packages loaded with the same blades in my arsenal and there are pics of two in this thread. Plus, NTS has some shots too. I am going by what's written on the front and back of the blade and there's no other ones I've seen with this particular pattern.

Go to the white 10 pack of the first 1959 patent date.....the chromium wrapper one. See how Made in England is off to the bottom left and Wilkinson Sword is printed up top? Should be just like that on the other side too.

Now look at The Blade 5 pack for 89 cents. That's gonna have the same exact looking blade I believe and also probably the same wrapper. Both shave me the same excellent way.

The other one is a sleeper. This dispenser actually says Super Sword Edge and uses no wrapper al a Gillette, but has that exact same blade (with no mention of Super Sword anywhere on the thing) loaded and shaves the same as the other two. I don't recall seeing any other blades looking exactly like those three versions and I have run across about a dozen variations.

Martin
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Another simple note: the older blades had the wrapper with the two Wilkinson Sword worded logo lines in small font in red letters, one staggered above the other. Later, the logo had larger letters, greater spacing between the two & sets of diagonal lines that consisted each of two smaller lines & one thicker line which was in use by the mid 1980's. Finally, the last production in the U.K. had a larger font on the wrapper that was two lines with an even larger font.

What throws me for a loop is the confusion around the earlier blades, first marked Stainless Sword-Edge and then later Super Sword Edge & Stainless. The latter two have the same blade wrappers. Which came first? Are the latter two indeed the same blade? :confused:

A good source would be period advertising to decode this.
 
1964 ad:

vintage-advert-in-1960s-magazine-dated-1964-for-wilkinson-sword-razor-ENN7N4_zpskntqpr44.jpg


1967 - '68 ad:

 
Oh aye, forgot about those Chromium + blades! They must be in the stash bag up in my folks' attic - guess where I'm going today?

I certainly remember some blades that Martin the Monkey Thrower kindly sent me having the 'Made in England, Packaged in U.S.A' print on the back like the Colonel has pictured above.
 
Gairdner said:
Oh aye, forgot about those Chromium + blades!...
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Chromium Plus? Huh? Never heard of nor seen that one. Is there a painting of the battle of Rorke's Drift on the card? :p ;)

Another photo of the later orange packaging, but this one just says Stainless Steel and not Sword Master Chromium like the other before in this thread:

 
Believe it or not, in the 70's I rented a small shared apt. while at university and the fella living on the other side (we shared a toilet & kitchen) was a cousin of Steve McQueen (he had the same last name) and looked remarkably like him. He was from Missouri where Steve had family if I recall.

Back on topic... Here's a thread on another forum whereas a fella says that Wilkinson improved their Chromium blade in 1969 and that it was better than the LB blade. However, he is incorrect in his summary that Wilkinson only used the word Chromium on the LB blades in the USA as one of my earlier photos proves. He does state however that "'the new Wilkinson Sword blade' was only around for about one year, then they changed the name to Sword Master XCN Chromium in 1974." The 1974 TV commercial I linked earlier with a photo of this blade proves that right. Here's the USA showing their intro in 1975: Scroll down to second line of ads on the left:


http://cdnc.ucr.edu/cgi-bin/cdnc?a=d&d=DS19750408.2.43.1


Here's the thread:


http://badgerandblade.com/vb/showth...um-Edge-(Light-Brigade)-—-Impressions/page7
 
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Great info and very cool re: the McQueen link, Bogey. I once bought an Aero Leather custom A2 flight jacket because McQueen wore one in the film......sad but true.
 
Picked up some vintage packs recently. I haven't yet shaved with any. Could the top pack be the first Chromium offering, i.e., pre- 'Light Brigade' packaging? Perhaps so as it has the name Super Sword-Edge in it which was the norm on earlier blades. Hence, I believe the 2nd pictured pack here is of an earlier introduced blade, however I think these two packages are fairly concurrent which merely shows the obvious that they were making more than one type blade at the same time:


 
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Bogeyman said:
I believe the 2nd pictured pack here is of an earlier introduced blade, however I think these two packages are fairly concurrent which merely shows the obvious that they were making more than one type blade at the same time:


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Ok, it's good that you posted this pic of what I believe to be the third Light Brigade blade packaging. Remember me saying something about the Wilkinson dispenser that used no wrappers similar to a Gillette blade. Blades just slide out on this and I have a 10 pack @$1.45 with exactly the same packaging and dispenser design. Only difference is on the bottom your blades say Super Sword Edge and mine don't. Once again I will mention that Light Brigade blades are unique looking and the ones I have say Made in England in that same offset bottom left spot as the other two versions mentioned earlier. Nothing with Super Sword Edge on either side of the blade, which is the piece of the Wilkinson puzzle being used for my reference.

This is the version most people aren't aware of and are what I look for. I would buy these all day long and have already gone through a pack over the years. Sleepers if ever there was one.

Martin
 
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dodgy said:
Ok, it's good that you posted this pic of what I believe to be the third Light Brigade blade packaging. Remember me saying something about the Wilkinson dispenser that used no wrappers similar to a Gillette blade. Blades just slide out on this and I have a 10 pack @$1.45 with exactly the same packaging and dispenser design. Only difference is on the bottom your blades say Super Sword Edge and mine don't. Once again I will mention that Light Brigade blades are unique looking and the ones I have say Made in England in that same offset bottom left spot as the other two versions mentioned earlier. Nothing with Super Sword Edge on either side of the blade, which is the piece of the Wilkinson puzzle being used for my reference.

This is the version most people aren't aware of and are what I look for. I will buy these all day long and have already gone through a pack over the years. Sleepers if ever there was one.

Martin
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I have this as well: the ten pack;



If the Chromium in my previous post are the third offering, why the word 'new' in the labeling as well as Super Sword-Edge? o_O

A good read on the era:


https://books.google.com/books?id=2...ades#v=onepage&q=pal stainless blades&f=false
 
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Bogeyman said:
These are surely early ones:






When was this 'alliance' in the U.K. between the two companies?
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I have never seen those two 10 packs before. To answer your previous question about the Chromium+ version, they came in a box (made in England) of 100 single wrapped blades.

The what I believe to be Light Brigades I've sampled have very little writing and always the same pattern. No stripes either. Surprisingly few blades look like this and maybe it's something worth trying to figure out how to spot. Pretty darn good blades.

There's a bunch of good old Wilkinsons and a few more even better. Hard to go wrong trying the vintage stainless steel blades. Some I could use every day and be happy.

Otherwise I can offer about no help trying to understand the Wilkinson history thing, although I might be willing to contribute a few versions for science if that comes up.
 
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