Thread: C.V. Heljestrand No. 10 with KB-extra mark

Gentlemen,
For years myself and a few close friends have referred to the area that you are pointing out as the 'notch.' It means so much to so few that to expose it now would be a travesty. The notch is there only when it is there and at times it is not. Notchless blades are more common, of course.....why? Because they don't cause you to pause and ask, 'what is the notch for, who put it there, why the sporadic issue of this pointless missing part of the blade. The notch can make some men weep, others throw their heads back and bray like donkeys when they see the notch.

Stranger, if you see me and you see the notch, don't say anything and we'll be even.

It read:

Hej Max!

Det är modellen som ser ut så.
Dem har inga defekter alls utan alla av denna modell har ett "hack i hälen".
Ha en fortsatt bra kväll!


Bästa hälsningar/Best regards,

(Employe's name)

Apparently it's part of the design.

Hi Max,

All that says is 'Hi Max, That's what the model looks like. They have no defects at all. All razors of this model have a 'notch in the heel'. Have a nice evening...'

That's not really enough to make me eat my words unfortunately - I think only a clear picture of a number (three or more, say) of this model, that is large and clearly focused, with the identical same notch would convince me, unfortunately!

Thanks for trying anyway!

Regards,
Neil

Come on, guys! Round em up! NOONE eats words more eloquently than Neil Miller!

Well, that's all I managed to get from them, sorry if it wasn't enough.

Regards,
Max

This thread has been dead for a while but I've managed to find another picture showing the enigmatic "heel notch" on the 'Heljestrand Excellens', the quality in this picture is a lot better than the one with black scales.

I guess we can't completely rule out that this is the same razor as the one in the picture at 'gents' but since they still have it in stock, I'm willing to take it as proof.

Anyway, enough rambling, here it is:

Thanks for that, Baxxer.

Isn't that an auction pic from Blocket? I can find the listing and the price - 600 (kr I presume - a lot less than Gents), but if I click on the image link it just tells me that there is no information, so it either sold some time ago or was withdrawn.

A shame, because I would have liked to get some info on the seller.

Every other lead I find on Swedish website goes straight back to Gents, so either their stock is large, or more believable, they have not managed to sell any. At 1900kr a hit I reckon the latter is nearer the truth.

Regards,
Neil

It is indeed from Blocket and a shame that the listing was gone.

On the Gents site there's one review from a woman who bought one for her stepson, so from that we can draw the conclusion that their stock originally consisted of at least two razors, since they sold one(possibly more) razors and still have it in stock but I wouldn't be surprised if it was the only one they sold since it isn't a very attractive feature to have on a razor and as you said, it costs 1900kr.

Regards,
Max

Hello from Sweden.
I am totally new to shaving with a razorknife, but today I decided that I would look up information about Razorknifes and if I found something interesting, I would order a startingkit, wich I did.

I bought the Heljestrand Excellens razor-knife with other things necessary to start shaving this way from Hudvård, rakning, grooming och kroppsvård för män | Gents

So now we can confirm at least two buys of that razor and I am excited to get it home.

I was like you guys wondering about the knife and it´s history, so I called their customer service and talked to a really nice Lady called Jenny.

She thought that the notch (and she said clearly that she was guessing) looked like it was there to help stabilize the edge as the shoulder stabilizer doesn´t go all the way down to the edge, and to me that seems reasonable. Combine that with what the member JimmyHAD wrote and it seems plausible to me that those two functions is why the notch is there.

Quote:
---------------------------------------------------
JimmyHAD wrote:
Don't feel bad Neil, I was wrong once before too.

Just a far fetched thought .... my father taught me to hone pocket knives when I was about 14. When the edge of a Colonial brand Barlow, or a Case XX went all the way to the tang he would take a triangular file and create a V notch to separate the edge proper from the tang. This allowed the honer to start from what became the very end of the cutting edge.

Lately I've noticed that a lot of TI production is what we call 'shoulderless'. So rather than having vertical stabilizers , single or double, the back end just swoops away from the tang. The razor shown by EVL in post #23 reminds me of a shoulderless grind, only with the stabilizer behind the swoop. Far fetched maybe, but I am wondering if it isn't possible that this was an experiment by Helje ? Perhaps a run of blades were damaged by machinery making the same defect in all ? Back in those days it was even more "waste not, want not" than it is now.

I could be wrong ..... I was wrong once before.
——————————————————————————————————

Any history about the markings on the knife she couldn´t help me much, but she said that the knifes were manufactured around the year 1960 just before the production closed.
So I looked around and found this site (nice), and looked further, I found another link

Carlotta - Person

this links to a site belonging to Gothenburg citymuseum and they have a record of a hairdryer manufactured by

K. Andersson Teknisk Fabrik AB ( which means K. Andersson Technical Factory Limited) with adress to Centralbadet in Stockholm.

Just wanted to let you know and hope you find it some how useful if any one wants to dig deeper.

best regards, vinz

Hi Vinz,

I hate to disillusion you, but the woman clearly does not know what she is talking about.

You did take pains to tell us she was guessing, though, so my worry is probably unfounded. She just is not very good at guessing games, I expect.

A 'stabilser' stabilises because it is thicker. Not at the bottom, that is bad design and keeps the heel off the hone, but it gets progressivel thicker until it merges, full width, with the spine.

On a well ground razor it is thin to the point of not being present at the heel. That is her first error.

Her second error is in thinking that cutting into the hollow grind of the heel will somehow magically stabilise the blade. Cutting that tiny notch out has only resulted in removing steel of the same thickness.

On a thin 4/8 blade like this, especially considering the degree of hollow grinding CVH gave to nearly every 4/8 I have ever seen, I wouldn't even cosider stabilisation of paramount importance.

No, IMO it has nothing whatsoever to do with stabilisation, that is just a red herring.

Jimmy's dad in effect removed the obstacle keeping the blade off the hone, and many of us do that by re-profiling the heel by the stabiliser, a much more elegant solution.

I do hope you enjoy the razor and that you take to shaving with a straight, because unless you negotiated a good price you are going to drop a packet of cash if you sell it on.

Regards,
Neil