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A few years back I purchased a blade lot that had two tucks of old carbon steel Gillette Blue Blades in it. Now mind you, these two tucks were made in 1971 and look like this:
http://www.mr-razor.com/Rasierklingen/1971 (R4) Gillette Blue Blade.jpg
The date is important because by then Gillette was treating these with a silicon coating to my understanding, unlike the older "bare" carbon steel ones. The Super Gillette Blue carbon ones had a PTFE coating and were a step up.
Regardless, I used one of these a few years back and was highly impressed, but had forgotten about it until I noticed the tucks in my storage bin. I grabbed a couple blades and used one today in a Canadian pre-war Tech razor. The blade was in mint condition with no sign of rust. Nevertheless, I soaked it in 70% rubbing alcohol for 20 mins. while mounted in the razor. I used Phoenix & Beau Solaris soap and the resultant shave was beyond outstanding.
This is sort of a "best of both" worlds blade in that it was Gillette's sharpest blade (so said their head of R&D at the time) using a modern (for that era) coating. Carbon steel takes an edge far easier than stainless and some say even today it can be sharpened to a finer edge. Metallurgy aside, the shave is simply marvelous and has a tad different feel. Since these are long discontinued and finite I will answer any question as to their shave longevity with this:
http://www.mr-razor.com/Rasierklingen/1971 (R4) Gillette Blue Blade.jpg
The date is important because by then Gillette was treating these with a silicon coating to my understanding, unlike the older "bare" carbon steel ones. The Super Gillette Blue carbon ones had a PTFE coating and were a step up.
Regardless, I used one of these a few years back and was highly impressed, but had forgotten about it until I noticed the tucks in my storage bin. I grabbed a couple blades and used one today in a Canadian pre-war Tech razor. The blade was in mint condition with no sign of rust. Nevertheless, I soaked it in 70% rubbing alcohol for 20 mins. while mounted in the razor. I used Phoenix & Beau Solaris soap and the resultant shave was beyond outstanding.
This is sort of a "best of both" worlds blade in that it was Gillette's sharpest blade (so said their head of R&D at the time) using a modern (for that era) coating. Carbon steel takes an edge far easier than stainless and some say even today it can be sharpened to a finer edge. Metallurgy aside, the shave is simply marvelous and has a tad different feel. Since these are long discontinued and finite I will answer any question as to their shave longevity with this:
