Thread: Razor identification

AMA is a brand name owned by G.E. Betterton of Leatherhead, England, who sell hairdressing equipment and has been for 60 years.

The AM razor is their own-brand but the razor is made by Dovo and stamped. I know, because not only does it show that clearly in the picture on Amazon but I rang them up and asked them.

So I bought one, £41 including postage brand new, considerably cheaper than the cheapest Dovo branded 'Dovo.'

Why the difference? Why does £25 fall off the price because it's got AMA rather attractively set in metal in the scales?

I don't know. I'm just glad I made the phone call!

Originally Posted by AlanII

Actually, Neil is one of the likely candidates to furnish you with the information you would like.

I agree. I've heard that Neil is very informative on that subject. I have found nothing in my references.

Originally Posted by engine46

I agree. I've heard that Neil is very informative on that subject. I have found nothing in my references.

G.E. Betterton. They're listed on the web. They don't bite. They've owned the AMA brand for 60 years. If you want to know about AMA, ask the people who know about it first hand! Am I missing something!?!?!?!

The Dovo Col. Chonk razor pictured below with its box, and the AMA Solingen Germany razor have the same box and paper sticker on them, and also the same transparent sticker on the blade itself.

Originally Posted by carben

G.E. Betterton. They're listed on the web. They don't bite. They've owned the AMA brand for 60 years. If you want to know about AMA, ask the people who know about it first hand! Am I missing something!?!?!?!

Post a photo of your razor.

I agree that they own that brand, but so do a lot of other people - in france, germany and america - all 'AMA' brands. As far as I know we were talking of a 1940s - 50s razor, not a modern one. The modern AMA razor is shown on Betterton's site and is clearly a Dovo. The fact that the one they showed previously without any AMA brand mark, only Dovo on the tang, led us down a blind alley. Even so, Dovo was the maker, not Betterton. Dovo made plenty of razors just as cheaply for other UK suppliers - most were not that good and several suppliers stopped stocking them (I was in-house honer for one of them) because of quality control issues. It seems that at that price point the razors were not top quality. Think about it - Dovo must make a profit, then the supplier makes a profit on top of that, so what is the real price - under 10 pounds, I expect. Not all of them had issues, of course, but in the year or so I worked for one supplier three quarters of the cheap Dovo razors had to be sent back.

Bettertons in actual fact act as distributors for several brands of scissors and razors: Ama (their 'own' brand), Dovo, Joewell, Gotta and Dovo. Mostly they deal in scissors, and the only Ama razor I have seen of theirs is a replaceable blade type made by Dovo, though I am not disagreeing that they sold or sell other types - all I would like is documentary evidence of a vintage razor - I have emailed Steve from Betterton's and asked him about this - am awaiting his reply.

The only thing you are missing is what it takes to give an unequivocal response - that consists of documentary evidence and photos to back that up - you have only a small piece of documentary evidence at the moment, but I hope Steve will back that up with other, more solid evidence.

The people at Betterton's may not bite, but how many of them on the sales side are over 60 years old? If we are talking around the first 10 - 20 years, then we want to be talking to someone at least 60 years old who has worked there all their lives, not a 20 something year old who knows very little about the company, for instance. A sales catalogue of that age with at least detailed descriptions (pictures would be better) would be even better than word of mouth, which we know may bear little resemblence to the true events for all sorts of reasons.

AS far as the maker goes, then it sems rather obvious that the maker was not and is not Betterton - even you are infering that the Betterton razor is a Dovo-made model. Dovo are not not have they ever been part of Betterton - they are a maker whereas Betterton is merely a reseller of other peoples goods as far as Dovo, Gotta and Joewell are concerned. Dovo and Gotta are German companies, Joewell is made in Japan. None of these products is made by Betterton nor are they made in the UK.

With brands like Joewell we see advertisements proudly proclaiming that so-and-so are 'The UKs largest Wholesale Suppliers' but this does not make them makers. Nor does it have any pretensions to refering to past decades. The only thing they are telling us is what is happening now. I for one am not interested in current trends, Bettertons or others.

That is the bit you are missing...

Regards,
Neil

Originally Posted by Martin103

The Dovo Col. Chonk razor pictured below with its box, and the AMA Solingen Germany razor have the same box and paper sticker on them, and also the same transparent sticker on the blade itself...

Many thanks, Martin.

That clearly shows the trademark, and it is not the same one associated with the old french razors of the same name.

Regards,
Neil

The part I missed was that you weren't interested in the current razors Bettertons are distributing. No, totally agree, of course they don't make the blades and so far as I know they've never pretended to. I wasn't inferrnig that, I said it clearly.

There is a picture of the current AMA razor here on Amazon. When mine arrives this week I will post a clearer picture of it. I've seen another very recent picture of the AMA razor which has the word DOVO clearly stamped on the tang, so it will be interesting to see which one turns up.

here http://www.amazon.co.uk/Ama-100-Razo...ords=ama+razor


.

Originally Posted by Neil Miller

Post a photo of your razor.

I agree that they own that brand, but so do a lot of other people - in france, germany and america - all 'AMA' brands. As far as I know we were talking of a 1940s - 50s razor, not a modern one. The modern AMA razor is shown on Betterton's site and is clearly a Dovo. The fact that the one they showed previously without any AMA brand mark, only Dovo on the tang, led us down a blind alley. Even so, Dovo was the maker, not Betterton. Dovo made plenty of razors just as cheaply for other UK suppliers - most were not that good and several suppliers stopped stocking them (I was in-house honer for one of them) because of quality control issues. It seems that at that price point the razors were not top quality. Think about it - Dovo must make a profit, then the supplier makes a profit on top of that, so what is the real price - under 10 pounds, I expect. Not all of them had issues, of course, but in the year or so I worked for one supplier three quarters of the cheap Dovo razors had to be sent back.

Bettertons in actual fact act as distributors for several brands of scissors and razors: Ama (their 'own' brand), Dovo, Joewell, Gotta and Dovo. Mostly they deal in scissors, and the only Ama razor I have seen of theirs is a replaceable blade type made by Dovo, though I am not disagreeing that they sold or sell other types - all I would like is documentary evidence of a vintage razor - I have emailed Steve from Betterton's and asked him about this - am awaiting his reply.

The only thing you are missing is what it takes to give an unequivocal response - that consists of documentary evidence and photos to back that up - you have only a small piece of documentary evidence at the moment, but I hope Steve will back that up with other, more solid evidence.

The people at Betterton's may not bite, but how many of them on the sales side are over 60 years old? If we are talking around the first 10 - 20 years, then we want to be talking to someone at least 60 years old who has worked there all their lives, not a 20 something year old who knows very little about the company, for instance. A sales catalogue of that age with at least detailed descriptions (pictures would be better) would be even better than word of mouth, which we know may bear little resemblence to the true events for all sorts of reasons.

AS far as the maker goes, then it sems rather obvious that the maker was not and is not Betterton - even you are infering that the Betterton razor is a Dovo-made model. Dovo are not not have they ever been part of Betterton - they are a maker whereas Betterton is merely a reseller of other peoples goods as far as Dovo, Gotta and Joewell are concerned. Dovo and Gotta are German companies, Joewell is made in Japan. None of these products is made by Betterton nor are they made in the UK.

With brands like Joewell we see advertisements proudly proclaiming that so-and-so are 'The UKs largest Wholesale Suppliers' but this does not make them makers. Nor does it have any pretensions to refering to past decades. The only thing they are telling us is what is happening now. I for one am not interested in current trends, Bettertons or others.

That is the bit you are missing...

Regards,
Neil

I am also stating that the AMA brand is not exclusive to G E Bettertons.

I think it has always belonged (with regard to certain straight razors, anyway) to Dovo. That includes AMA and AMA 100.

If you google these brands a whole lot of people, totally unrelated to G.E.B., turn up selling them - in the UK as well as all over the world. That tends to rule out G.E.B. entirely, except as small peculiarities of copy mark and patent law is concerned.

Take this old AMA 100 razor below, for example:



I have had a few of these over the years, mainly from Germany. I have no doubt that they were made in Solingen, Germany, as witness the box. No mention of G. E. Betterton anywhere. The things that complicate the matter are the french AMA strops and razors that bear the same mark yet have 'Made In France' on them, and the similarity to a Gotta design, including the scales, although I now believe, thanks mainly to Martin, that Dovo is the originator.

I did not mention current razors, I merely mentioned current trends - read things more carefully before getting carried away with yourself.

Regrds,
Neil

Well, Steve got back in very good time indeed - great customer service and I can only recommend him and his company for seeing to this so fast - bravo!

Here is the body of his email to me:

Hi Neil,

We are importers of hairdressing scissors and razor and are agents for brands such as Joewell, Gotta and Dovo. We also have our own brand which is Ama. We don’t manufacture ourselves but have them produced by a number of factories around the world. Our Ama razors were manufactured by Gotta but for the last 15 years Dovo have be producing them for us.

I hope this helps.

Kind regards


Steve Lloyd
General Manager
G E Betterton & Co Ltd

That clears up a few niggling doubts for me, at least, and I hope for others.

So, just to avoid doubt,

1. From 1999 Ama razors marketed by G. E. Betterton were made by Dovo in Solingen, Germany.
2. Pre 1999 then the same brand was handled by Grah & Plumacher (NB: 'Gotta' was a brand of Grah & Plumacher, Gotta were not razor makers)

The Gotta 'Hamburg Ring' razors made by Grah & Plumacher were exceptionally fine razors. From the razor below, you can see the similarity to the AMA 100 I posted earlier:



It is more or less the same razor.

The only thing that remains to be solved is the 'French Connection' - I expect we would have to enlist Jimmy 'Popeye' Doyle on that one...

Regards,
Neil