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"Sputnik" double-edge safety razor blade with paper wrapper
Object/Artifact
A Soviet-made stainless-steel double-edge razor blade of the "Sputnik" brand, retained with its printed paper wrapper. DESCRIPTION: A single double-edge (DE) safety razor blade with the standard slotted central cut-out for post-mounting on a three-piece razor. The blade is stainless steel and shows the brand name and country of manufacture stamped into the metal. It is accompanied by its individual paper wrapper (the flat printed sleeve a single blade was folded into). The wrapper carries a gold maritime device — a crown above a three-masted sailing ship — over a gold horizontal rule, with the brand name in serif capitals beneath. A second wrapper face (or the reverse/companion sleeve visible in the record) carries an envelope-style fold graphic, a check mark, a partially visible circular device at the left edge, English-language care text, and the country-of-origin line.
2025.1.38
The Cabrera Arús family collection
2025.1
Leningrad Machine-Building Association "Leninets"
Leningrad
U.S.S.R.
Eastern Europe
Europe
The brand name postdates the October 1957 Sputnik satellite launch for which it was named, and the "MADE IN USSR" export marking places manufacture before the 1991 dissolution of the Soviet Union. Comparable Sputnik blades and wrappers in the resale market are commonly described as 1960s–1980s Soviet stock, but those are seller attributions, not documentation.
Blade: "SPUTNIK"; "STAINLESS" (partly obscured by corrosion, reading as "…NLESS"); "MADE IN USSR". Wrapper (front): crown-and-sailing-ship device in gold; gold horizontal rule; "SPUTNIK" in serif capitals. Wrapper (other face): an envelope-fold graphic with a check mark; "MADE IN USSR" (set vertically); "RINSE – DO NOT WIPE"; a partially visible circular/triangular device at the left edge. (See research note on this device.) Languages: English only (Latin-script "SPUTNIK," not Cyrillic "Спутник"; "MADE IN USSR," "RINSE – DO NOT WIPE," "STAINLESS"). This indicates packaging intended for export / English-language markets rather than domestic Cyrillic packaging.
Fair
Leopoldo Arús Gálvez
owner
Leningrad Machine-Building Association "Leninets"
producer
Havana
Cuba
Caribbean
Central America
use
Leningrad
U.S.S.R.
Eastern Europe
Europe
production
The "Sputnik" name was, like a number of Soviet consumer brands of the late 1950s onward, drawn from the space program — the brand takes its name from the satellite launched in October 1957, which is the firm terminus post quem for the name. Trade and collector sources consistently identify Sputnik as a Soviet double-edge blade brand made in the USSR, and tie its production to the Leninets enterprise in Leningrad. This origin is confirmed by the triangle symbol understood as the Leninets trademark. The same sources note a close relationship between the Sputnik and "Neva" brands — both described as Leninets brands listed at neighboring Leningrad addresses on Zastavskaya Street — which is relevant here because the gold crown-and-sailing-ship device on this wrapper corresponds to the maritime/Leningrad imagery collectors associate with that production lineage rather than with the satellite motif used on other Sputnik issues.