I'm trolling through treasury department publications (oh, the things I do for fun!) and the picture that emerges is... Complicated.
January 1911, in Mill Supplies Volume One (a brand new trade rag for jobbers) there's this:
http://books.google.com/books?id=zOr...37%2C43&edge=0
The Zepp Safe-Razor Company of 299 Broadway, New York City filed a motion with the department for a drawback on tariffs related to the German made blades in their razors. They filed that on September 12, 1912, a few months after the first advertizement (that I can find) which appeared simultaneously in several quarterly magazines in the summer of 1912. (McBride's, Lippincot's, Outing, The Bookman). The Treasury wouldn't get around to offering them that refund on tariffs until 1918, by which time the company appears to have been defunct.
In 1912, 299 Broadway was an office building (I don't know if the IRS was directly across the street from them *then* too, but it is now) that housed multiple businesses.
The ads for the Zepp Safe-Razor company dry up completely by the end of 1914.
Polk's New York copartnership and corporation directory of 1915 lists the president of the Zepp Safe-Razor company as one Carl Friedrich Ern Junior, so there's that mystery solved, though by that point they'd pulled up anchor and moved to Jersey. An earlier listing in 1912, when they were still at 299 Broadway, lists the president as C. Fred Ern Jr. There's a partial 1911 listing for the company too, with Ern again listed as president.
A 1916 Druggists listing has them at the NJ address, making razors and safety razors.
It's worth noting that all the tax filings to this point put the Zepp Safe-Razor company squarely in the upper 10% of company valuations. $128,000 followed by $250,000 -- that was serious money then.
I can't find it now, but a listing from 1916 or 1917 lists them as defunct.
And this all starts to look nicely cut & dried, yes?
Then comes 1918 and this listing:
http://books.google.com/books?id=S6h...80%2C66&edge=0
So it looks like the company got sold to Edward Weck, of Sextoblade fame.
No, no, no. I caught a case of the dumb. Those are two separate listings... So Zepp is still being listed in business directories as of 1918. Back to the books!
Short version:
Zepp Safe-Razor company was founded in 1911 by a group of American investors, they put Carl Friedrich Ern Jr at the helm. Company made razors for a number of years, filed taxes, paid tariffs, folded, got refunded tariffs and... Somethin', somethin', somethin'? Back to the books for me.