Mvltiplex Razors

All that changed in my world when I discovered a pair of Mvltiplex razors in an antique shop in Toronto, Canada a few years ago. Now your first question might be "What is this Mvltiplex stuff, shouldn't it be Multiplex?" On ancient monuments, and until at least the last century on important public buildings, the letter V was substituted for U in monumental inscriptions. Maybe you have seen this on the "Hall of Jvstice" or "Pvblic Library". Well I think the Mvltiplex is monumental enough to deserve the honour. Maybe they also deserve the honour of a more modern appellation: "Mach 5".

Collector Renzo Jardella has some Mvltiplex razors and he tells me that they were made in Milan, Italy for a very short period in about 1935, and quite a few were made. Renzo has spoken to one of the original retailers who told him that the Mvltiplex was not very successful due to the fact that getting under the nose to shave was very difficult. One can believe this when they hold the rather substantial razor in their hand.

THE RAZORS

Renzo has found out that there are several different patterned hand engraved outer boxes (see photo at right) that were worked in North Africa and sold in the French market. There are also some with magnificent carved wooden outer boxes.

My razors, and the other one shown from Renzo's collection below, are in plain bullet shaped octagonal cases of silver or gold finish. The razor has a female threaded fitting on the cap that screws onto a male thread in the bottom of the case, as shown below. A very elegant way to keep the razor safely in the case.

There are models with one and two screws clamping the whole thing together and many minor variations in handles and heads. Renzo says he knows of about 8 variations, most with a bar guard. One of mine has a bar guard, and one a comb guard, which seems to be less common.

The Mvltiplex is finely made, and fits together like the proverbial Swiss watch. Multiplex disassembled

Unscrew the cap clamp nuts, and start taking off layers and you find yourself with the pile of pieces shown in the picture. There are five blades, and five plates, each numbered in sequence. The blades have multiple holes (so there are in fact only two kinds, odd and even) and there are arrows showing where to pass the spindles through to get the whole thing in alignment when you screw it back together. I imagine you could damage your upper lip with one blade out of synch! It speaks to an age where one had more time for shaving, or a butler to help prepare. I wouldn't recommend trying to make a fast blade change before the opera without ample time and a bit of patience.

The Mvltiplex takes us back, as do many of our shaving collectibles to an era where society still combined many of the best traits of by gone days and the modern world. Where shaving was still a bit of an art, and the razors we used, like the Mvltiplex were still manufactured to be both beautiful and functional, a bit of art themselves. Multiplex logo

I want to thank Renzo Jardella for the pictures from his collection shown on this page and for much of the information used here. This is a collaborative effort involving two collections and two collectors.


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