A travel razor usually either have a very tiny handle – like my, admittedly tiny all over, Laurel Ladies Boudoir Razor – or a handle in two parts – like my Merkur 985CL. But James Alex Denby Watt had a different idea. He patented a collapsible, hexagonal razor handle in 1930 – and it worked well enough to be part of a production razor.

More on that later – lets first look at the handle.

As can be seen from the drawing, it operates on the same principle as the combined traveller’s drinking cup and shaving mug we looked at a couple of years ago. It is segmented and hollow, and each segment will lock into the ones above and below it when it is extended. This means that the collapsible handle will only be one segment long when collapsed.

It also makes for a very cone shaped handle. James gave his handle a hexagonal shape, with slight indentations along each edge. This would, I think, both prevent the pieces from rotating in relation to each other as well as providing a better grip.

Patent drawing for US patent 1,749,051

Additionally, James suggested that the individual segments could be knurled, aerated, ribbed, grooved, pierced, slotted, punched, or otherwise toughened in order to provide a better grip.

This, however, do not seem to have been done in the production razor that utilised this collapsible handle; the Compax.

As a side note, the Compax was a very interesting razor in its own right. It was an adjustable single edge razor, that came with a stropping machine built into the box, and – naturally, a collapsible handle. You can fine some info and a lot of pictures right here.

I see no reason why this collapsible handle couldn’t be made with standard threads and used with almost any razor head. It could turn any razor into a travel razor.

You can read the full patent for the hexagonal collapsible razor handle over at Google Patents.