A 'Gem' of an Antique find - the Gem 1912 Safety Razor

The story behind the find of this Safety Razor is quite interesting.

My brother knows that I'm a collector of Safety Razor's,  and on his trip to an Antiquities store in Daylesford, Victoria,  he found this 'Gem' (Pardon the Pun). It's a Gem 1912 Safety Razor, and the first thing that speaks to the eye is the handle. 

Amazing pattern, reminiscent to old time shaving tools. It is a pattern that stands out on the shaving rack, and adds a certain prestige to the Safety Razor itself. This particular handle is in amazing condition, with little wear and tear to the overall knurling.

On the other side of the spectrum, the razor head did have a bit of corrosion on and underneath the latch at the top that holds the blades down. This was easy to fix, with a bit of Mother's Aluminium rim cleaner. This took the corrosion off,  and kept in tact the original chrome finish.

Afterwards, I ran the head of the razor under water, and then let it sit submerged under isopropyl alcohol for 24 hours for sterilisation and a deep clean. As a result,  I was left with an amazing shine all over the head of the razor. As a fun touch I then left the handle sit in isopropyl as well for around 15 minutes. This brought out the shine of the patterns within the knurling even more. Below is a set of images showing the final result of the brief restoration. 

The First Shave

I wanted the first shave with this Safety Razor to be one which truly depicted what this Safety Razor can do in all of it's glory! As this Safety Razor is a SE (Single Edge) razor, I then set about purchasing what is said to be the preferred SE Blade for this model (GEM PTFE Stainless Steel SE) from tryablade.com. 

Although, due to my curious nature, I was not patient enough to wait 20 or so days for these blades, as I am currently on holidays and would like to test this Safety Razor ASAP. So as a make-shift solution, I set about with creating my own SE Blade from an existing DE Blade (Polsilver Super Iridium).

Impossible? Y....No. Yes, DE Blades are a little thinner to that of an SE blade, but if the right shape was cut out for this specific Safety Razor, this should do the trick. And it Did!

Yes, it isn't as pretty as an SE, but by all accounts and purposes, it fit nice and snugly into the 1912's Head, with no warping, movement and twisting of the blade as well. As you can see below, the end result was a perfectly aligned blade, with awesome blade exposure and even blade gap.

Now, be sure to tap on the end of the exposed blade to ensure that there is NO rattling. In my case, there WAS NOT.

The Verdict - An unexpected but amazingly comfortable, 2 Pass BBS shave. That modified Polsilver Blade worked a treat, and gave me the results one can expect from such a quality blade.

I thought to myself before even going near this razor that with this blade, and this being my first SE razor, that I would basically butcher my face to pieces. This was absolutely NOT the case.

I must say that this type of Safety Razor did work as a more wider angle that the usual DE Safety Razor, as one can expect this from the shape of the head. The weight distribution of this SE razor is to me, perfect for the type of beast it is. I myself did not experience any form of a cut, knick or any razor burn, but this may also be because my technique is pretty much down pat to this point.

Yes, again, this is subjective, and every wet shaver is different, but for this go around, I had one of my top 3 best shaves of all time. See for yourself! For $45 bucks AUD, you could not get much better, and you'll also be holding a piece of history in your hands as well.

The anticipation builds for the GEM PTFE Blades to come, because if I got this type of quality shave with a make-shift SE Blade, imagine what I could do with a proper SE Blade.