German Democratic Republic Adjustable Razors
All three brands listed below were manufactured in Zella-Mehlis by VEB Feintechnik Eisfeld. "VEB" stood for "Volkseigener Betrieb" which means State Owned Enterprise. "Feintechnik" is the name of the company and "Eisfeld" its location. (There is an exception - See the Brillant page)
Visually, looking at them all together, you can see that the later Erfa's and Brillant's seem to have very similar handles. Its almost as though they started with the Erfa's which were Two-Piece razors and at some point around Generation 5 decided to start manufacturing TTO one-piece razors and branded them Brillant de Luxe.
The Triton is the odd one out but it was also manufactured by VEG Feintechnik.
According to what I've read online, the Erfa's start from the early 1960's through to the very early 1980's. The Brillant's were manufactured from about the mid 1970's to the early 1980's and the Triton was manufactured in about the mid 1980's.
They also manufactured a range of non-adjustable razors and blades.
I believe that the razors listed below is a complete collection of all the Adjustable razors that were manufactured in the DDR.
Erfa Rasant
I believe that the images below are in the chronological order that they were released. As far as I can tell there were six generations and the changes alternated between a handle change and then a head change.
Click HERE to go to the Erfa Rasant page or on one of the images below to take you directly to the razors page.
Erfa Rasant Gen 1 |
Erfa Rasant Gen 2 |
Erfa Rasant Gen 3 |
Erfa Rasant Gen 4 |
Erfa Rasant Gen 5 |
Erfa Rasant Gen 6 |
Brillant de Luxe
Looking at the changes in the Erfa Rasants and applying the same logic, it would indicate two generations. The first has an Aluminium handle and the second has the plastic moulded handle/base plate in one piece. I believe that I have an early Gen-2 which has the the plastic handle with twist-knob of the first generation, so a "sort-of" transition razor. Once the twist-knobs were used up they then changed it to the final version.
Click HERE to go to the main Brillant de Luxe page or on the image below to go directly to the razors page.
Brillant Gen 1 | Brillant Gen 2 (Early version) |
Brillant Gen 2 (Final version) |
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Triton R3 |