![]() ![]() (Most likely tomorrow)We acknowledge the Traditional Owners of the place now called Victoria, and all First Peoples living and working on this land. Read all about these things in part 2 of this examination, which I will post as soon as I can get it finished. And there were several things to discover. The information about Robert Mercer gave me a big fat thread to pull on. This is the original photo from eBay:įurther communication with the seller revealed, that he had bought the razor several years ago, at a public auction in Pennsylvania where several items from Pvt. When I bought the razor, a note about the original owner was included. Thankfully we have more information about the razor, to support this. The Khaki set that I am examining here has the serial number J 2164, which makes it one of the early Khaki sets, and therefore probably present during the active part of the campaign of the US expeditionary Force. Khaki sets with a high probability of having been “in the trenches” of World War 1, therefore need to have relatively low serial numbers. Also, to a collector it is important to point out, that a lot of the sets were produced after November 11th 1918, and therefore they were handed out to the troops after the last shot of the war had been fired. It is common to find sets without thumb-tacks, mirror or blade-box. The huge amount of produced Khaki sets also makes them fairly easy to come by, even today 99 years later, but the sets are rarely complete. 3.5 million US soldiers simply came to enjoy safety razors and Gillettes in particular. It has been speculated that these events are the main reason why safety razors became more common than straight razors after the war, and also the reason why Gillette became a leader in the field. The images are shamelessly copied from random web-pages. Note: The pictured sets are (sadly) not a part of my collection. The other sets (labelled: “Made in U.S.A.”) were sold in stores. This explanation has been cast in doubt though by army historian Richard Steward, who theorizes that the razors were handed out primarily to prevent lice.Ī wide range of Khaki sets and US service sets (the ones in metal cases) were produced by Gillette, but only the ones labelled “Property US Army” with J serial numbers were delivered directly to the military and handed out to the troops. The soldiers literally had to shave to stay alive. That is supposedly the reason why the razors were part of the equipment in WW1 as opposed to WW2. Gas warfare was common in World War 1, and if the gas masks were to be effective, the soldiers had to be clean shaven. 3.5 million sets were made especially for the US army to hand out to the troops as part of the regular equipment. The Gillette Khaki-sets were made in 1918-19. Note: The thumb-tacks in the corners were included, so the mirror (in the lid of the box) could be hung on the posts in the trenches or in the barracks. If you do not really care that much about history (I assume that you care about razors a lot since you are here), you will very likely find this post boring… So read on at your own risk – You have been warned!įortunately there is quite a bit of history to be discovered for this particular razor-set - and I do not want to omit any details - so I have decided to split it up in to smaller parts, this being part 1.Īs described in an earlier post, I recently acquired a Gillette Khaki set: I hope the post will be interesting for DE shavers with an affinity for vintage shavers and history in general. In this post I am trying to examine the history of my recently acquired Gillette WW1 Khaki set.
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