Schick is the second-largest razor family in this archive and it works in the opposite way to Gillette. There is no number to read and no letter to decode. The entire dating method is a classification of shapes, published by the collector Alan Appleby and reproduced in the reference sites ever since, and it comes with an honest warning that is easy to skip over and important not to.
What the classification says about itself
The guide describes a succession of subtle changes and refinements occurring on a regular basis, and concludes that those clues, plus packaging, allow the razor to be dated with some degree of accuracy. That is the claim: a degree of accuracy, with packaging standing alongside the razor rather than behind it. The same guide carries a footnote on the author's page stating that the types were assigned by the author for classification purposes and are not company design or model designations. Any answer about a Type J or a Type L is therefore an answer in a collector's system, not in Schick's own catalogue.
The types, and the eras they cover
The types run from A to O, and the sequence is the era. The shape of it:
- A and B, 1926 to 1932. Type A is the Magazine Repeating Razor, a cylindrical ribbed body holding a magazine of twenty blades; Type B is The New Schick Razor, squarer, with a revolving head and a pull-out button.
- C, 1933 to 1941. The Simplified Schick Automatic Razor, with simplified loading and a filigree handle.
- D and E, both starting in 1935. Type D is the first true injector, with a scissors handle, gold plating and a brass injector; Type E is the numerous pre-war line in butterscotch bakelite with a revolving spring clip. Two types sharing a start year is the point where the model has to be read closely.
- F, 1940 to 1941. The New Improved Schick Injector, a short production run with a cast handle-guard.
- G and H, the post-war years. Type G is the Eversharp-Schick De Luxe in bakelite-look plastic with parallel grooves on the guard; Type H is the Fashion Razor, or Deb, a cream body with a gold ribbed cap.
- I through L, 1955 to 1980. Type I is the square, fully ribbed handle with a triangular head; J is the long round ribbed handle; K is the Lady Eversharp Beauty Razor; L is the long-lived line that includes the 500 and the Golden 500.
- M, N and O, the last decades. Type M is the Dial adjustable, with eight positions or an angle adjustment on the back of the head; Type N is the narrow black plastic handle of the 1980s and 1990s; and Type O, the last of the line, was discontinued in Japan in September 2001.
The overprint: a brand era, not a year
Schick razors carry an inscription on the head, the rivet or the handle, and it moves through three states. Before 1946 the razor reads Schick, from the Magazine Repeating Razor Company. From 1946 to 1955 it reads Eversharp Schick Injector Razor, under Eversharp Inc. After that it reads Schick Injector Razor again, with Eversharp reduced to a small banner on the two initials. The ladies' line from 1962 reads Lady Eversharp Beauty Razor.
This is genuinely useful, and it is worth being precise about what it gives: a brand era, not a year. The overprint tells you which company was selling the razor, which bounds the period, and it does not tell you when the razor was made inside that period.
The packaging, treated as an equal key
The classification elevates packaging to a second key of equal standing, and the sequence it records is long and specific. The early razors come in a long rectangular white cardboard box, then a leather or leather-over-metal clamshell, then a maroon bakelite clamshell with a printed lid, then a black bakelite clamshell with a gold-and-red box, then a tan leather case with a lifetime guarantee on the bottom from 1939 to 1945, then a black art-deco stand-box with a container for used blades, then a wartime navy or red clamshell in cardboard, then the brown and cream box of 1946 to 1953, and finally the first plastic case in red and clear in 1950 to 1953.
The honest caveat attached to that list is that one case can serve several types. The same black bakelite clamshell appears on both the Type D and the Type E, so a case narrows a window rather than pinning a year.
What you actually get, and what to watch
A Schick injector can be placed in a type, in a brand era and in a packaging era, and those three together give a window of years that is often narrow and never exact. Two wrinkles are worth carrying.
- Types can overlap: the Hydro-magic lever appears in both Type I and Type L, so a single feature does not always select one type.
- The letter is a classification, not a factory code: two Type I razors may differ from one another in ways the letter does not express.
- The market expectation should stay modest: the reference archive itself notes that a bare injector is not worth very much unless it shows an unusual feature, which is true of the whole injector family and is reflected in the value framework on this site.
Start from the model and typology page, or read how the American single-edge razors are dated for the other half of the injector and single-edge world.