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

Since I first saw pictures of one of these, I've wanted to own one. There's something about the industrial design that appeals to me on a pre-verbal level. Maybe it's because it reminds me of the better industrial designs of the mid 1980's, maybe it's because I'm just a sucker for clean little arrows telling you which way to move things.

This reminds me a bit of the Rolls razor, except that I find it more functional -- I never did get the zen of shaving with an edge on the end of a stick. It's a very gadgety razor. If you slide the guard off the bottom of the scales, they separate into halves with a little comb at the bottom. Those little rivets that look kind of like an oddly placed third pin hold on push-tab buttons at the point-end.





I like the knurling on the buttons. If you hold in the button while you close the blade, a little tab inside will lock onto the functional barber's notch at the end of the blade, like so:



Now you've got a razor with a guard! How new and high tech! The incredible innovations of the machine age..

Wait, you Stewart's Plantagenet razor came first? Oh. Stewart bought the existing patent from another firm? Oh... Jean Jacques Perret had one in the mid 1700's? In fact there were a lot of different versions of this idea.

Well, did any of those guys have arrows and sans-serif typefaces? NO THEY DID NOT!
(I actually like the design of the Plantagenet razor best, but I've failed to get my hands on one so far).



In any event, this is a neat razor. Here you can see it with one of the scales clipped to the blade to act as a guard. It's really easy to unclip and change sides, and as an added bonus, you can use the clip to lock the blade into the scales to prevent it from opening. To get it open again, you have to take that slide off, open one scale and then unclip. It's an elegant design, but the weight of the scales works against it. I have to wonder how much better a tool this would be with a heavier blade to balance the weight.



The one I got does have a forging defect in the blade. It looks and feels like a bad crack, but it's very shallow and doesn't extend down to the cutting edge (or up to top of the spine). It hasn't seen much honing, and it took a fantastic edge with minimal effort, other than dealing with the weight of the scales. I can't really stress this enough. I got one of the best shaves I've ever gotten from this razor.

These were made between the summer of 1912 and maybe as late as 1915. By 1916, the Zepp Safe-Razor company was listed as defunct. I can't find any ads for theses razors beyond 1913 though, so I suspect they'd gone floaty in the aquarium well before 1916. For a year, there, they were posting a lot of business. $120,000 or so of assets at the end of 1913. The following year there was some kind of reassessment though, I think over import duties because the parts were made in Germany.

Next up, I'll post some pictures of the Zepp with its close cousin, the Ern Junior.

I really enjoy seeing different styles, Thank you for taking the time to show us.

I got both my Zepp and my Ern Junior in their original leather carrying cases. Both needed some fixing, but the Zepp's was easier to do. It just needed to have the interior parts re-sewn (though my grandmother would probably sigh if she could see the job I did -- she taught me better).



They've both got scales of nickel-silver, which actually has no silver in it at all - it's %60 copper, %20 nickel, %20 zinc. The Zepp just got polished before I took the picture (I used brass cleaner, and it worked great). It will tarnish to that warmer silver color over time.



Before I put them next to each other, I kind of suspected that the scales on the Ern were parts that'd been worked less than the Zepp parts, but it turned out that the 'grill' on the bottom of the Ern has fewer teeth than the comb on the Zepp, and there are some other differences as well. They are, however, very similar.

Unfortunately for the Ern, it doesn't have any added usability features to offset the weight of the scales.



Ironically, the Ern was in some ways in better shape when I got it. It's only real problem was that the tail had been taped up with ancient cellophane tape that had done what celluloid is so good at -- released nitric acid (that's how the carry case for it got that 'burned' spot -- it was from the tape). The tail was probably taped to prevent the razor from swinging freely through the scales since at some point the original mounting screw got lost and someone just put it back together with a copper rivet. The tail of the razor is badly pitted from the tape, but the blade is pristine. What you see there is how I got it.

Some ads for the Zepp claim the blade is made with vanadium steel.



Others don't mention that. I could swear I found one that just says 'cast steel', but now that I'm posting about it here I can't find it again.

Unreal, I never knew these existed. I can't say I would want one, but I'm glad to have seen them. Isn't it interesting that a collector/shaver, who has mainly been interested in the earliest Sheffield stub tails, would become interested in such advanced contraptions as the Zepp and the Ern ?

Originally Posted by JimmyHAD

Unreal, I never knew these existed. I can't say I would want one, but I'm glad to have seen them. Isn't it interesting that a collector/shaver, who has mainly been interested in the earliest Sheffield stub tails, would become interested in such advanced contraptions as the Zepp and the Ern ?

I really can't stress enough what an amazing shaver the Zepp is. Not that I tried it with the silly GUARD in place.. SHEESH!

And you'll note... I kind of want a version of it with a fat wedge of a blade.

Speakin' of which, this John Barber razor I bought from ScienceGuy has such a thick, tall spine that one piece of tape wrapped over the top didn't actually cover the area that touches the hone. I had to tape both sides of the blade independently... And after all the sanding I did, it's going to be a career getting a bevel on it again.

I really like those, Thanks for sharing!

Far cooler (and I'll bet 5000 times more effective) than a Durham Duplex with carpet knife blades from Lowe's Seriously though, that's a really cool lookin razor

Very interesting razor for sure, a little gadgetry but nevertheless unusual different and the fact that its a good shaver makes it operational and not a dust collecting collectable. Thanks for sharing!

thats a cool razor , in my short time here and looking around ive never saw such a thing ...

This is the age that i find most interesting. The straights are losing the battle and are looking for ways to find themselves more interesting or practical to fight the SE's.