Thread: What did grampa do ??

Unforetlunately my family has a tendency to throw out what their pop used so none of the things that my grand-pop used are around any longer. On my mom's side grandpop used a 60's super speed that I can recall him using. On pop's side his pop died many years before I made my appearance and grandma never talked about him or what he used. However I have several theroys about what he used. To get to the straights I have to go back another generation before that one of the great grandpops had eight sons and nine daughters and thus he did nto really have much time to spend in the baathroom shaving, he had to get the job done and get out there and settle a fight or stop someone from killing the other. The family has no idea what he did and what he used probably went in the garbage long ago, but its most likely that he went by a hardware store and picked up a cheap straight and strop since he was born and raised in germany he probably would have gravitated towards german hardware and would not have put much stock in the new fangled safety razors since the straight would have been what he grew up with.

However forum members can help me by giving me some clues as to what he most likely used. Great grand pop was a man who met his wife in the old country and moved to this country with three kids in tow and did not have a lot of time or a lot of dollars to spend on the hardware. We are talking just before the turn of the 20th century around 1895 or so. He was fresh off the boat with wife and kids in tow and would have not wanted to spend much time or dollars on shave gear.

What sort of selection do you think he would have had to chose among? Would he have been able to stop in a local hardware store and pickup a no name? He was from Germany so he would have preferred german hardware. Were there much german hardware in the US for him at the time? Would he have stopped at a black smith and picked up something there? Was dovo around back then? What sort of options do you think he would have had?

Originally Posted by Geezer

I was a butcher and sous chef during the mid 50s and carbon steel was king. The steel did change color depending on what was cut and the humidity of the room. What we call "patina" was a normal feature of all using knives. A fine hone line was the only shine. Grey was"in!" A Henkles' prime rib knife was $30 and:
In 2009, the relative worth of $30.00 from 1955 is:

$240.00 using the Consumer Price Index
$199.00 using the GDP deflator
$325.00 using the unskilled wage
$383.00 using the Production Worker Compensation
$554.00 using the nominal GDP per capita
$1,030.00 using the relative share of GDP
~Richard

Yes, but not everything appreciates like that. There are many things that cost less now than the did 30 years ago and some things have only risen a small amount.

JB,

If your great grand father was living in a major US city, he would have been able to find many inexpensive German razors being sold in shops or by door to door peddlers- many of them recent immigrants themselves.

At that time, Germany was flooding the US with over a million razors a year* priced below comparable US razors. US manufacturers (Torrey**, Robeson) complained to congress to enact protective tariffs. Congress did slap import duties on the German razors but the German business model was able to absorb it.

WWI should have given the US razor companies a breather from German competition but then the Gillette was coming on the scene and a Mach III future was assured.


* US population in 1900 was less than 80 million
** The ironic thing is that Torrey started out importing razors before they started making their own.

http://books.google.com/books?id=0to...page&q&f=false