Ernst Frohlich looked at the man sitting across the table from him. He was nondescript, clean shaven, and dressed in contemporary clothing, but his accented German identified him as one of the now famous "up-timers" from Grantville. The fact that the man had requested to meet him anonymously in a public house in Meiningen late at night in the middle of winter both puzzled and intrigued Frolich. Meiningen was quite some distance from Grantville, and separated from it by the entire Thuringenwald, to boot.
Still, the offer in the letter of a guilder and free meal for an hour of his time insured that he was there in the pub that evening. As a locksmith, he was used to traveling at the whims of customers to install locks in houses, estates and stores after they had closed for the day. He was no stranger to working by lamp light far into the night.
"So, may I ask what this meeting is about?"
The man looked around the room to insure that they were alone. It was late on a Tuesday night, and most of the other patrons had either left or were too drunk to pay much attention to the two men.
"Let me start by saying that I was told that you are a man of discretion, and I was assured that you could be counted on to keep any matters we discuss tonight strictly confidential. That is all that you need to do to earn the guilder I promised. For my part I can tell you that nothing that we will be discussing is in any way illegal. Do you agree to those terms?"
Ernst hesitated only for a moment and then nodded. The up-timer placed a heavy silver coin on the table and slid it over to him.
"Very well. I need an honest opinion from you." He reached into a pouch on his belt and withdrew a small metal object. He placed it next to the guilder on the table. "Can you make something like this?"
Ernst picked up the object and turned it over in his hands. He brought it closer to the candle on the table to look at the details. The metal work was exquisite. Not extremely ornate, but all of the parts fit together tightly. The clamp at one end was spring loaded, and there was a small amount of filigree work. All of the surfaces were polished to a silver gleam. There were a few places where this silver layer had worn through, and yellow brass was showing. Whatever it was, it had obviously come from whatever future world these people had come from. He sighed and handed it back reluctantly.
"No. I cannot. I have no idea how to coat the brass with the other metal. I am sorry."
The other man frowned. Then he pushed the thing back towards Ernst. "I am not worried about the plating. I am interested to know if you could do the rest of it."
"Yes. It is fairly straightforward. It is only made of a few pieces. If you just want one made out of brass, I could do it in a few days."
"Good. That is what I wanted to know. My next question is would you like to learn how to plate the brass like that?"
"Of course!" he said instantly. Over the past two years, the rumors of what these "Americans" could do had virtually flown across Thuringia and Franconia. Their metal work was renowned. To learn some of their techniques would give Ernst's shop a decided advantage over several of his competitors, if only in novelty value. "But now I have a few questions for you. Who are you, and what exactly is that thing"
The man leaned back and smiled. "You can call me Mr. Smith for right now. And that 'thing' is half of a small fortune if everything works out right."
"If it is worth a fortune, then why are we meeting secretly in a pub? Your people are supposed to be such wizards with making things. Why aren't they making these?" He eyed Mr. Smith suspiciously. "And most importantly, why me? And why do you want someone in Meiningen? I would think somewhere closer to
Grantville . . ."
The up-timer shook his head. "As I said, I was told that you are a man of discretion. One of your former clients assured me that you were both skilled, and exceedingly honest. I needed someone that I could trust with this project. The reasons I don't want to do it in Grantville—or anywhere nearby—are simple. First, everybody there has other projects that are considered more important. Second, nobody else so far as I know has thought of it yet. And third—this explains why I came to Meiningen—I don't want anyone in Grantville knowing what I'm doing. Not till I'm ready to start selling the product."
He leaned forward again. "If you look here"—he pointed to some stamped numbers underneath the clamp, barely visible in the flickering light—"it says 1912. That is when this was patented in the United States. That was almost ninety years before the Ring of Fire hit us. And the original models go back maybe twenty years before that. By the time we got here, this was old technology. Almost nobody used it anymore."
Ernst thought about that while he sipped his ale. He put the tankard down. "So I make you one of these things, and you can show me how to coat the metal? How is that worth a fortune?"
"No. You make several hundred of these things, I pay you for them and I show you how to plate them. Plating is the process. We can use gold instead of nickel to plate them. It is easier for me to get my hands on, and it will last longer."
"I still don't see how this is a fortune. I would be more than happy to make these for you, though to do hundreds would take some time, and you would have to pay some of the costs up front. I can't afford to have my shop only making these for you, and neglecting our other customers." He paused and looked back at the metal tool. "And you never answered my question. What is it?"
"It is called a 'safety razor.' It allows you to shave without having that six inch blade waving around your throat."
Mr. Smith picked up the razor and inserted a small, square blade into the clamp. He then held out his forearm and proceeded to shave the hair off a patch of it with remarkable ease.
"The reason I picked your shop to do this is because you have the ability to make these, I don't. I am not a metal worker. You are small enough that you should be able to keep this a secret until we are ready to hit the market."
"We?" Ernst asked, startled.
"Yes, we. In addition to payment for the handles, and the information on plating, I am prepared to offer you a quarter of the ownership of the business. Another quarter of the business is owned by the sword maker who is currently making the blades for these."
Ernst thought about that while he finished the ale. A quarter of a business for staying quiet. And he would be paid for the razor handles. It was an intriguing proposition.
"So why all of the secrecy?"
"It is simple. As you can see, this is not a complicated device. Any competent smith could make one. The key to this market is name recognition. You want people to always think of your name when they think of a product. In our century, advertising was a fine art. It was done on a scale that has never been attempted here and now. People spent lifetimes coming up with ways to get the customers to remember the company names. To draw them into buying something that they didn't really need, but felt that they could not live without. Safety razors took the market by storm when they came out. One of the first men to sell them sold less than a hundred of them the first year. And maybe a few hundred blades. Within a few years, he was selling hundreds of thousands of razors, and a proportionate number of blades. He had found a need in the marketplace, found a product, and made sure that his was the name people thought of when they went to buy a razor. There were literally hundreds of other companies that sprang up within a matter of years that copied his idea and tried to take the market away from him. That razor there was made by one of his competitors. But his company had the advantage of name recognition. And better marketing plans. A hundred years later Gillette, the man's company, was still around. Almost none of his competitors were."
He paused and looked around the mostly deserted inn. "The razors have to look good, and must be designed to last. That one there is at least eighty years old."
Ernst picked up the safety razor from the table and again examined it critically. He carefully removed the blade. It was rectangular, made of blued steel. Incredibly thin, it was sharpened on one side. He drew it across his thumb, and gasped as it drew a tiny drop of blood. He stared at the up-timer. "You expect me to believe that this is over eighty years old? Impossible!"
Mr. Smith smiled "The blade is new. It is a copy of the original blades, made by the man who already owns a quarter of the business. But the handle is over eighty years old. I have been using it myself for several years now. And it belonged to my grandfather before that. He bought it used as a young man, and used it for several years before moving on to a better, more modern design. As you can see, there is only a little wear for how much it has been used. But the blades only last about a week. There is where we make the money. People will have to come to us to get replacement blades. We can make them cheaper than their local blacksmith, because we will have a shop that is doing nothing but turning out these blades as fast as they can. Again, I am not a metal worker. But I do have some knowledge on how some of the original up-time things were made, and I have spent the last year doing research and experimenting. We can gold plate the handles and make them last for many years. As long as they last, the customers will keep coming back for blades. It is just the way people are. They won't want to spend the money to buy a different razor if the one they have still works."
"I will want something legal in writing. If this is as big as you say it will be, I want something that spells out exactly what you have proposed."
Mr. Smith grinned. "So does that mean we have a deal?"
"Yes. We do."
Over the next few weeks, Ernst produced several prototypes for Mr. Smith, whom he now knew was named Zeke Pridmore. They decided on the final design, and production began. Zeke supplied several things to help with production. The rollers to flatten the brass stock to a specific thickness. A press to stamp out and form the sheets of brass to exact shapes. And most interesting of all, a small glass vat, a "car battery," and a pedal-powered charger to keep it working. The electroplating was incredibly simple once it was demonstrated, and though gold was expensive, a single ounce was enough to cover many pieces of brass. Within a few months, Ernst and his two apprentices had made almost a thousand safety razor handles.
When Zeke came to collect the handles, he showed them the final packaging. It included the handle, five blades, each individually wrapped in a colorful waxed paper envelope, a small lather brush, a small glazed earthenware cup and a round cake of pleasant-smelling soap. All of this was nestled in a small wooden box with the company name and logo burned into it. This was to be the initial marketing run. The profits on these sets would be negligible. And less elaborate sets would be available in the next run. But as Zeke had explained, it was important to make the initial "splash" in the market. And the primary market would start in the area immediately around Grantville, where people were already familiar with the idea of safety razors.
By the end of October, Ernst had given up all of his other work. He now employed two journeymen, another apprentice, and was having another room added on to his shop just to handle the extra press and rollers that he had purchased. New batches of razors were sent off as soon as they were completed. In his almost weekly correspondence with Zeke, he received newspaper clippings of advertisements for both the razors and the accompanying supplies. Evidently the advertising campaign was working. Sales were extraordinarily good. A soap factory had been purchased to keep them supplied with the various toiletries that the company was now producing. And a bank draft for his share of the profits arrived monthly.
In November, he received a letter asking him to come and visit the company headquarters in Grantville. After months of working with one of the people from the future, the idea of actually seeing the town was too much to resist. It would take him almost a week to get there, but winter hadn't set in yet and he could now afford the time off. Leaving the shop in the capable hands of his new foreman, he set off for his first trip outside of Franconia in his life.
The first few days of his trip were uneventful. As he got closer to Grantville, he started to see what Zeke had described as "billboards" for their razors. The closer he got to Grantville, the more of them he saw. Outside of Suhl, he saw a small sign by the roadside. It caught his attention because it was in the same colors as the company billboards he had seen in the towns. It was in both German and English, and simply stated: If you don't know.
He stopped the wagon, and got down to look at it. It was definitely the same red and yellow color scheme that they were using, but there was no logo, no name, and only that one cryptic line.
"I will have to tell Herr Pridmore that something has happened to one of his precious signs," he murmured to himself.
A few minutes later, he came upon another sign. This one was identical in size and shape to the last one, and it had only the words: Whose signs these are.
Again, Ernst stopped to look for any logos or markings, and found none. He climbed back up and started the wagon forward again. He was puzzled. Zeke had made such a big deal about advertising to draw in customers, and here were signs that looked like theirs, yet made no sense.
A third sign was posted still farther down the road. It was just like the previous two signs, and it stated in neat lettering: Then you must not.
He didn't even bother stopping to examine it. But he was actively looking to see if he could spot the next sign as he went on. He was rewarded a few minutes later as he came around a bend in the road to find a fourth sign.
Have traveled very far . . .
As Ernst went around the next hill, he saw a full sized billboard in the same red and yellow as the signs. Across the top was the unmistakable company logo in bright red.
Burmashave.
Ernst smiled to himself and rode on. Drawn in, indeed.