Shorter than the articles, sharper than the tables: how each system is read, and where it fails.
Under the guard, on the shank, inside the case, on the blade spine — every place a razor carries a date.
Open the guide ↗MethodWhy a set is read by its newest original piece — and what that means when two marks disagree.
Open the guide ↗Code systemA Gillette date code is one letter and one digit, stamped in the corners of the underside of the guard. The digit is easy. The letter is the whole difficulty, b
Read ↗Code systemFor twenty-seven years Gillette put a number on its razors, and the shape of that number changed twice. Reading it is a matter of knowing which era you are in:
Read ↗Code systemFor nineteen years an American Gillette carries no date at all, and most of the other makers in this archive never used a code. Here the razor is the evidence:
Read ↗Code systemA straight razor has no code. It has a stamp struck into the tang between the blade and the pivot, and that stamp names a firm — and a firm names a period, not
Read ↗Code systemENGLAND on the tang of a straight razor does not mean a year. It means the razor is no earlier than the day the marking became a requirement, which is 1 March 1
Read ↗Code systemA box, a wrapper or a case is evidence about the outfit a razor was sold in. That is worth having — and it is weaker evidence than it looks, because a razor can
Read ↗Code systemSome razors carry no code and no firm date, and still say something about when they were made. The grind of the blade, the head of the razor and the wording of
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