Vintage Merkur with Progress-like Baseplate

[efsk]

Over the years Merkur made various razors with a baseplate with upcurved baseplates similat to the Progress. Big difference: these were not adjustable. I figured it might be a good idea to have these in one place, whilst still giving those whose modellnumbers are known their own thread.
Some of these already popped up in the Merkur 601 thread.
An overview of mine so far:

 

[efsk]

Here's two types I don't know the number of. Very interesting here is that these seem to have the Progress "bridge" built in the baseplate, however this is fixed, and does not move up and down as it does with the Progress.
The metalbaseplate hase some plateloss. The plastic baseplate shows a bridge where the short sides curve down, instead of the angular edge the metal baseplate has.
My pics fail to show that the undersides of both razors have the same markings on the baseplate.

 

[efsk]

The white razor is the 1950s model 71. There are minor differences between the two razors shown: the ends of the safetybar on the brown razor are flattened, where the white ones are a bit convex, and the bottom end of the brown handle is hollow, where the white one has a Merkurlogo.

 

[efsk]

Left what we think is the 601, right the 140 (145/148 depending on case). My crappy photography fails to show the markings on the base.

 

[efsk]

Here's two more. Apart from the handle, the markings on the baseplate are different.

 

[efsk]

Here's the more curious one: no markings at all, yet believed to be Merkur. Full metal, and a baseplate that is quite different from the others: see the large openings for the guidingposts.

 

[gvw755]

My humble contribution to this discussion:



The metal base plate version indeed has no markings on the razor itself, but the box it came in was clearly marked. Of course that is not an indicator of anything as there are many gold Tech razors on eBay being identified as Aristocrats because they happen to come in an Aristocrat case. Still, the base plate certainly shares DNA with the adjustable Progress and so I believe it to be. The seller identified this as a Model 640. The other two with non metal base plates are of different designs as Richard pointed out previously. The one on the right came to me missing the handle and so I used a carbon fiber tubing to give it a more modern look.

 

[efsk]

The 640 has a thin silver handle amd plastic baseplate as the above shown 140. Pics in the catalogscan found elsewhere aren't clear enough, but I suspect the 640 has the Progresslike metal bridge in the baseplate.
You got two of the all metal ones?

 

[gvw755]

I got the near NOS set first and the shave was so great that I looked for one that I could use in my rotation. I believe that second one (which I shave with regularly) actually came in a trade with you.

 

[efsk]

Didn't know it was the second one, but we did trade one. Then I accidentally acquired more and more of those razors and started to regret the trade, then I found one for myself and the world was back in order

 

[efsk]

Found another one, with a very long screw. LEather case is of the type I first saw with my fleamarketfind Ibsen, which was the first Ibsen I ever scored.