Rolls Razor

Sharpening was noisy as each change of direction rotated the blade to slap against stone or leather.

Rolls Razors, Ltd. made several models with variations based solely on casing material, finish and shape.

Later razors have a three-row Greek key design and with "The Whetter" trademark near the end of the case.

This was a mechanical version of the dry shaver that was operated by repeatedly squeezing a lever on the handle.

Originally the machines were manufactured in the Netherlands, but later an assembly line was set up at the company's factory in Cricklewood, London, where prospective customers could view the process.

On the back of a heavy advertising campaign, and prices 50% below those found in shops retailing products by Hoover and Hotpoint, the machines were offered on hire purchase in light of the British Government relaxing many restrictions on this type of finance.

In response Bloom was forced to increase his advertising costs just as sales began to fall, and was then hit by the 1964 postal strike which resulted in coupon returns drying up.

Receipts from Rolls's customer hire purchase agreements were underwritten by banker Sir Isaac Wolfson, who by mid-1964 had bankrolled the company with an £8 million loan.

[9][10] The speed of withdrawal caused the company to be mentioned during questions in the House of Commons, UK.

The London Stock Exchange resultantly asked member companies for more frequent and more thorough financial statements, which it formalised in later legislation.

[12] Rolls Razor was subsequently a respondent company in a House of Lords judicial decision called Barclays Bank Ltd v Quistclose Investments Ltd.

Manufacture continued with machines built by the engineering company Tallent (who built the company's dishwashers), who re-branded them as such briefly, but by 1965 the machines were marketed as Colstons before the appliance division of Tallent was taken over by the Italian firm Ariston in 1979.