Word: stainless
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...biggest of them all was really only waiting until it was ready. Last week Boston's Gillette Co., the world's largest maker of razor blades (7 billion last year), announced that it too will market a stainless steel blade. The new blades will be distributed first in New York and Philadelphia and then to the rest of Gillette's 3,500 distributors and 500,000 retail outlets. Gillette thus becomes the third major U.S. company to go stainless, and its entry into the field signals the start of what is certain to be a bitter competition...
Gillette entered the field with some reluctance. It could afford to ignore the success of Britain's venerable Wilkinson Sword Ltd., which has been unable to meet demand ever since it began selling its Super Sword-Edge stainless blades in the U.S. 18 months ago. But demand for the stainless blades lured Gillette competitors Schick (Krona Plus) and American Safety Razor (Personna and PAL) into the field-and Gillette was forced to go along...
...company spent months experimenting before it was convinced that it could mass-produce stainless steel blades of uniform quality; the chrome carbide particles in stainless steel make it more difficult to sharpen than the carbon steel that is used in most razor blades. Gillette will produce its stainless blades in a new $10 million addition to its Boston plant, which is capable of producing more stainless blades in a week than the 7,000,000 exported to the U.S. by Wilkinson last year...
Worse yet, if the stainless blade lasts for too many shaves (some Wilkinson shavers boast up to 20), it could mean a cut in Gillette's total sales. Says Mark Litchfield, Gillette's assistant treasurer: "If the stainless steel blade gives twelve shaves or more, we could have some real problems...
...wine (the biggest import item, about $22 million worth), brandy, Roquefort cheese and flower bulbs, but it leans heavily on merchandise made in West Germany, the chief market for U.S. chicken exports before the higher tariff. If they are retained on the list, trucks and buses (aimed at Volkswagen), stainless steel netting, electric razors, flat steel wire, scissors and shears will all be slapped with higher tariffs. The U.S. strategy: to show that it means business and to cut sufficiently into export sales of German industrialists so that they will be roused to oppose the powerful German farm lobby, which...