Guillotine Blades?

[Jim Cassedy]

Does anyone know a source for new Guillotine blades?
(No, I'm not talking about the medieval French execution device-
replacement blades for those are relatively easy to find - -
I'm looking for Guillotine SPLICER blades! )
I used to be able to buy a brand of old-fashioned single-edge razor
blades that worked, but now I can't even find those. - THANKS! -

[Leo Enticknap]

The actual guillotine isn't as medieval as one might assume: it was used for judicial executions well into my lifetime. As a middle school student, I remember it capturing our imagination during history classes on the French Revolution, and making one out of balsa wood, with a box cutter for the blade and a Lego man with a sad face playing the role of Robespierre!

As for the sort that is used to trim the edges of splicing tape, Larry Urbanski is listing Neumade splicers on his website: maybe he has some spare blades for them? When I worked at the Egyptian and if memory serves me correctly, we bought splicing tape from Bruce's Entertainment, which could be a possible lead. Jack Roe claims to have splicer parts available on their website, too.

[Jim Cassedy]

Thanks, Leo. I think I used to get splicer blades from Christy's Editorial supply, but I checked
their website earlier today & I don't see them listed, but I suppose I could send them an e-mail
and ask. I still buy split reels & a couple of other esoteric occupational oddities from them.

FYI- During my online search for "guillotine blades" today, this device popped up:
RatCutter.jpg

At first, I thought it was some sort of sausage slicer, but it's actually a "rodent guillotine"
- the company that makes them says they are designed for 'animal researchers' and they
claim it is "one of the most humane methods of dispatching laboratory animals . . quickly
and without trauma" < except for, ya, know- - the loosing their heads part, I guess>

. . and these come in several sizes. The larger ones look like it could 'dispatch' a rabbit
or kitten. ( free shipping too! )

[Marcel Birgelen]

The story of the Guillotine is an interesting one. While it's named after Joseph-Ignace Guillotin, it was actually someone named Antoine Louis who built the first prototype of the thing we now know as Guillotine, based on the "requirements" as formulated by Joseph-Ignace Guillotin. Joseph-Ignace Guillotin himself was a physician that was strongly opposed to the death penalty and because he couldn't convince the government to abolish it, he at least tried to make it more humane.

The first Guillotine was introduced in 1789, so that's not really medieval anymore. The British had a similar device though, the Maiden, which also used a heavy falling blade as method of execution which was apparently introduced somewhere in the late 1500s, which would make this a late medieval thing.

The French really loved their Guillotine though, like Leo indicated, the last use was in 1977 and it only was officially abolished in 1981, together with the death penalty all along...
While Europe may be known for being rather "progressive" in regards to the death penalty, Belgium only officially abolished it back in 1996. But Belgian politics has a tendency to move slowly, so they probably started the abolition process back in 1896.

[Leo Enticknap]

They loved it so much that its "appearances" took place in public until 1939! The last one was photographed and filmed from the window of an apartment opposite the prison entrance, after which the government decided that this likely wasn't the best advertisement they could come up with for Paris's tourism industry, and had all subsequent executions take place behind closed doors. Fun factoid: a very young Christopher Lee was among the crowd at the final public guillotining, and recalls that the experience was part of what motivated him to become an actor in horror films.