2025.1

MAKER / ARTIST: Polish state razor-blade manufacturing enterprise based in Rawa Mazowiecka, Łódź Voivodeship, central Poland. The crossed "RA-WA" letter logo visible on the interior label is the factory's trademark. Production ceased at some point before 1992 — after which the Wizamet factory in Łódź became Poland's sole razor blade manufacturer (later acquired by Gillette). DATE / PERIOD: Estimated 1960s, possibly extending into the early 1970s. The mid-century-modern starburst graphic design is strongly characteristic of late 1950s through 1960s Eastern European consumer-goods aesthetic. The 10 złoty price marking is consistent with PRL-era pricing of the 1960s for small personal-care items (price stability under the planned economy means the marking is helpful for dating, though not as precise as one might wish without comparison to dated Polish retail-price archives). ORIGIN: Rawa Mazowiecka, Łódź Voivodeship, central Poland (Polish People's Republic / Polska Rzeczpospolita Ludowa, 1952–1989)

Front face / top (printed): - "RAWA LUX" (brand name, yellow text on dark navy diamond ground) - Decorative starburst graphics (no text) Short edge / side panel (printed): - "RAWA LUX" - "CENA Zł.10.-" (Price: 10 Polish złoty) Interior label / opposite face (printed): - "RAWA LUX" (large header) - "MADE IN POLAND" (English country-of-origin marking, for export visibility) - Silhouette of double-edge razor blade - "DW IV" (specification — DW = "dwuostrzowy" / "double-edged"; IV likely indicates grade or series) - Factory logo: crossed "RA-WA" letters in a small mark - "0,10 mm" (blade thickness specification — the standard for double-edge safety razor blades) Languages: Polish ("CENA Zł.10.-") + English ("MADE IN POLAND"). The bilingual labeling — Polish domestic-market price + English country-of-origin — suggests the same packaging was used for both domestic Polish sale and export to non-Polish markets.

Cardboard

MATERIALS: Cardstock / lightweight printed cardboard; multi-color lithographed inks (turquoise, yellow, dark navy, white/cream, black); the original blades would be hardened carbon or stainless steel TECHNIQUES: Offset lithography or letterpress color printing on cardboard, die-cut and folded/glued into a standard slide-box or lift-lid blade-box construction

Good

Rawa-Lux razor blades were produced in Poland, and after their production was discontinued, the Wizamet factory in Łódź became the only manufacturer of razor blades in Poland, exporting to countries around the world. Rawa Lux was the Polish state razor-blade brand named after its production city, Rawa Mazowiecka — a town in central Poland's Łódź Voivodeship. The crossed "RA-WA" logo visible on the interior label is the factory's signature trademark, encoding the city's name in a typographic mark. The brand was discontinued at some point before 1992 (when Wizamet, the surviving Polish razor-blade manufacturer, was privatized and 80% acquired by Gillette). The graphic design of the Rawa Lux box is a small but real example of the famed Polish School of Posters (Polska Szkoła Plakatu) era and Polish graphic-design culture of the late 1950s through the 1960s — internationally celebrated for its bold, painterly, modern aesthetic. Polish state enterprises during this period produced consumer-goods packaging of unusually high graphic-design quality, often by serious commercial artists working in the same modernist visual vocabulary as the famous Polish poster designers (Henryk Tomaszewski, Jan Lenica, Roman Cieślewicz, etc.). The starburst pattern — with its scattered yellow, white, and navy stars on a turquoise ground, intersected by diagonal white "X" lines — is unmistakably "atomic age," echoing the Sputnik-era visual fascination with stars, atoms, and cosmic motifs that characterized international graphic design from the late 1950s through the early-to-mid 1960s. Polish design particularly excelled at this register. As an object, this small razor-blade box is therefore a tiny but high-quality example of PRL-era state consumer-goods graphic design. Polish-Cuban trade context: Poland and Cuba had strong COMECON trade relations throughout the 1960s–1980s. Polish exports to Cuba included a wide range of industrial and consumer goods: passenger cars (Polski Fiat 126p, Polski Fiat 125p — the "Polski"), tractors, machinery, electronics, small household items, and personal-care products. Polish razor blades (Rawa Lux and later Polsilver / Wizamet) were a standard COMECON consumer good available in Cuban state retail outlets. A Polish razor-blade box in a Cuban family collection most likely arrived through this regular state-retail import channel, rather than via personal-travel acquisition — Cuban men of all classes used Eastern Bloc razor blades as a routine shaving consumable.

A note on the blade specification. "DW IV / 0,10 mm" indicates a double-edge ("dwuostrzowy") blade in Series IV at 0.10 mm thickness. The 0.10 mm dimension is the standard double-edge razor blade thickness across all global manufacturers (Gillette, Wilkinson Sword, Feather, Astra, etc.) — it's a global industry standard that allows blades from any maker to fit any standard double-edge safety razor. The "DW IV" series designation may indicate a specific blade-coating, edge-grinding, or carbon-vs-stainless variant within the Rawa Lux product line.