Thread: Katz Bros. Straight Razors

Does anyone know anything about these razors ?


One is marked Bangkok the other Singapore

Both also say made in USA ???

There is this link with information about the owners of a Katz Drug Store chain in the metro Kansas City, Missouri area, stating

The Katz brothers were big on marketing, and I can recall once when they gave away razors, which of course got customers to buy the blades.

More likely there is a link to the German Katz brothers who started a trading/importing house in Penang. They even had a street named after them. Their company was active in all of SE Asia, large and influential. It had its own ships, both passenger and freight. Loads can be found about them on the internet.

In This book review about a work on the German presence in Penang (Malaysia) for instance.

Or here where they 'a thriving European shopkeeper established in 1865' are mentioned as donors of the single largest gift towards a Singapore chandelier for a mosque in Nagore (India).

Or this reference to them as the German manufacturers of metal wire in a book about Aceh (then Dutch East Indies).

Then this ad in an august 1924 Chinese newspaper (page 12):


And this one from 1931 (page 8) that states them as of Singapore, Medan, Bangkok and Kuala Lumpur and mentions a successor, either as agent of this drug or of the company itself:


There is an older ad on page one, column six of the January 3rd 1894 Straits Times, but this is only accessible from within the Singapore National Library.

Two more book references:
Japan and Singapore in the world ... - Google Boeken
The Papers of Ulysses S. Grant ... - Google Boeken

Wow , what an amazing reply !