Solingen Razor - Any info on this?

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Jul 31, 2011
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I started shaving with a straight razor so today I was at my dads house and asked if he had one (he is kind of a junk knife collector, yard sale stuff). I turns out he was working in a house and found this with a bunch of Nazi stuff. The owner told him to get it out of there. Any info would be great. It seems to be shave ready believe it or not.

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Looks like one thats seen a fair bit of use. Max Sommer is the maker, so you can do some looking online for info there. Looks like it would clean up well, and be usable. I doubt it has any real history with the nazis but if the other stuff was war trophies, it could have arrived that route. I believe that US troops were issued Gillettes for the war, but its also possible that that serviceman preferred a straight. So who knows really. It could also be completely unrelated to the other stuff.
 
Looks like one thats seen a fair bit of use. Max Sommer is the maker, so you can do some looking online for info there. Looks like it would clean up well, and be usable. I doubt it has any real history with the nazis but if the other stuff was war trophies, it could have arrived that route. I believe that US troops were issued Gillettes for the war, but its also possible that that serviceman preferred a straight. So who knows really. It could also be completely unrelated to the other stuff.

Thanks, I just wanted to make sure it wasn't something special before I clean it up and use it.
 
as far as I could tell from the little I found, its just one of many. Some deep digging might find you a range of manufacture dates for that model, or at least for the operation of that company. And to the best of my knowledge any straights that are marked with a swastika or other markings are either fakes, or far older than the nazi association to the symbol. I seem to recall reading of at least one manufacture that used a swastika as a makers mark, but it was related to the earlier use of the symbol. Although I could be wrong on that. Either way, I don't think there would be any massive historical importance to that razor, at least not any that would be verifiable at this time. I also don't know of any collector value, that would have to be asked at one of the straight razor forums for more info on that. Personally I would just clean it up and use it, and any value it had would be in how well it shaved. I'm no expert, but generally if there is something really special about a razor, it comes up pretty fast when searching SRP.
 
as far as I could tell from the little I found, its just one of many. Some deep digging might find you a range of manufacture dates for that model, or at least for the operation of that company. And to the best of my knowledge any straights that are marked with a swastika or other markings are either fakes, or far older than the nazi association to the symbol. I seem to recall reading of at least one manufacture that used a swastika as a makers mark, but it was related to the earlier use of the symbol. Although I could be wrong on that. Either way, I don't think there would be any massive historical importance to that razor, at least not any that would be verifiable at this time. I also don't know of any collector value, that would have to be asked at one of the straight razor forums for more info on that. Personally I would just clean it up and use it, and any value it had would be in how well it shaved. I'm no expert, but generally if there is something really special about a razor, it comes up pretty fast when searching SRP.

Thanks.
 
Clean it up, hone it, and enjoy it. I have yet to find any razor that has any value that exceeds my enjoyment from restoring/using it.

That said, I am not a fan of polishing out nice patina that doesn't impact use, but that is a personal preference. Rust/bloom has no home on a razor. Have fun!
 
The names on a st razor blade are often related to the maker of the razor (naturally) where it was purchased, and the country of origin or the origin of the steel used for the blade. In this case your razor was made by a large and famous blade maker named Wald. Wald is still very much around today. The other name is probably the name of the department store that sold it.
However, the blade has not been sharpened properly and needs to be worked on. I would suggest you send it to nates straights to have a new edge. If this razor were to be for sale on ebay just like it is the selling price would probably be $20. Wald is a decent brand but not a great brand and the best thing about it is the name Solingen which is the name of the town in Germany that makes high end blade steel, like Sheffield does in England. Good luck.
 
The names on a st razor blade are often related to the maker of the razor (naturally) where it was purchased, and the country of origin or the origin of the steel used for the blade. In this case your razor was made by a large and famous blade maker named Wald. Wald is still very much around today. The other name is probably the name of the department store that sold it.

As stated earlier Max Sommer is the maker and was located in Wald Solingen which is one of five city boroughs http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solingen.

Bob
 
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