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I won this Rolka and Klein razor on ebay and was hoping someone could tell me a little something about it.
Flickr: shinychrome0's Photostream
I haven't been able to find anything about the company itself, or the quality and value of its razors. Anybody know anything useful?
Well, being from solingen its probably a great shaver and doesn't seem to need much work to get shaveable again. I can't help you any further as I don't know much about them and we don't offer appraisals on this site.
I wasn't really looking for a specific dollar amount to be able to sell it, just a general idea of whether its of decent quality or not. I'm just getting into collecting and honing razors, so i have almost no knowledge of brands and quality of steel. Does the Blue Steel mark actually mean anything? Is it a specific alloy? And i just added another picture with some dates that were hidden with the case closed. Are these likely to be dates it was honed, or possibly sold?
Rolka & Klein was the import agency.
They were in business 1906-1911, located in New York City. Friedrich W.Klein was the president.
The main item of import was razors made in Germany.
So they weren't actually the manufacturer?
Yes. Only import.
Okay great, thanks. Any idea on what those dates on the box might be?
Telephone numbers.:)
5 digit phone numbers?
Why not? ...in 1910.
I can't say for sure, but they aren't connected with the razor. IMO.
Makes sense. What about this blue steel mark? I've seen it on a few other brands of razors but never heard what its actually referring to.
And here, i've actually found that you're probably right. Big cities, such as new york, used 5 digit phone numbers in the early 20th century, which were broken down by dashes like that sometimes. I would have guessed that they were dates.
http://www.artlebedev.com/mandership/91/