In 2002 the publisher Michael Raeburn offered me a small box, suggesting I might find some 'appropriate or inappropriate preservation for what was inside.' When his father Walter died in 1972 it was discovered that he had kept virtually all the razor blades he had used since the late 1920s. Each one was returned to its inner and outer wrapping, marked with a date and sometimes words or a code to indicate how good a shave it had given. I made this initial piece to familiarise myself with the collection. It shows laminated colour reproductions of all the packets in date order from 1927 until 1971.