Thread: The Marx brother without a terminal vowel: Zepp!

Originally Posted by sharptonn

Yes, Martin! Good work! That is it! I have seen many of these Zepps and, of course, advertising exists for them. I have not seen an Ern of this design. Perhaps Zepp was a division of C.F. Ern, OR the design was sold to Zepp. Zepp is seen on regular straight razors as well. I wonder if any research into Zepp might yield more clues?

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:



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:



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.

And as an interesting footnote to that, the original VC investors (Harry P. Picking and Charles O. Geyer) ponied up the cash for a large number of other companies, into the 1930's. Looks like they just loooooved manufacturing. Until they got into electronics, the Zepp Safe-Razor company was the most they'd spent.

Oops. Major error in my post, I edited it.

So It would seem to me that the "Ern Jr" razor was a product sold by Zepp during those few years?
I am also supposing that the razors (Jr's and Zepps) were made in Gemany by "Dad", C. F Ern, for his son, the inventor of the prototype.
Goins sez that C.F. Ern died in 1924 and sons Jr and Otto took over C. F. Ern in Germany
A quick glance at Goins said 1920-1930 for Zepp!

SO, is the Ern Jr from the Zepp days, or did he produce it from modified Zepp tooling after Zepp went down? Before or after his father's death?

Originally Posted by sharptonn

So It would seem to me that the "Ern Jr" razor was a product sold by Zepp during those few years?
I am also supposing that the razors Jr's and Zepps) were made in Gemany by "Dad", C. F Ern.

The Ern Jr has manfully resisted my every attempt to find its origins. So far, it hasn't turned up in any literature, but the name isn't exactly the most searchable. It actually looks like, by that point, it was Junior who was doing most of the manufacturing. He also patented (in 1898) a machine for simultaneously grinding and polishing razors.

Have you had any luck finding the Ern Junior, Martin? I'm not even entirely certain they were sold in the American market. The one I got came from BC.

Originally Posted by Voidmonster

The Ern Jr has manfully resisted my every attempt to find its origins. So far, it hasn't turned up in any literature, but the name isn't exactly the most searchable. It actually looks like, by that point, it was Junior who was doing most of the manufacturing. He also patented (in 1898) a machine for simultaneously grinding and polishing razors.

Have you had any luck finding the Ern Junior, Martin? I'm not even entirely certain they were sold in the American market. The one I got came from BC.

Not much info about origins etc , a lot more info on others of their razor, patents, etc

finally found a complete zepp razor , and for a great price. its unfortunate most people don't wet shave but on the other hand that means more for us in the know

Thought I'd go ahead and resurrect this old thread. I found the patent for the Ern Jr. razor.



It was filed with the U.S. patent office in August of 1912, and the patent was granted in August of 1914. It's interesting that the creation of the Ern Jr. razor post-dates the Zepp. I'd always just kind of assumed it was the other way around, with the construction of the Zepp being somewhat more complicated.

Also, here's a clipping from a 1915 Shapleigh Hardware catalogue:



The scan isn't great (it's from a catalogue page auctioned off on eBay), and it can be a bit hard to read, so here are the takeaways:
The Ern Jr. razors were available in three finishes -- gold, silver, and gunmetal. And the 1915 price per dozen was $40.