How do we manufacture a single razor that will suit everyone?
Gillette's answer to that question was their Adjustable razor. The first one was produced in 1955 and the last version was produced in 1988.

This is a condensed version of that journey that started with the Serial Toggle in 1955 and ended with the Black Beauty in 1988.

This is a copy of the Gillette Advert in the 01st April 1911 edition of The Literary Digest and is the earliest reference that I could find mentioning "Adjustability". (Clicking on the image will open a large version in a new window) A single razor that catered for various beards was all razor manufacturers goal going back to the early 1900's. As far as I have found, Gillette was the first company who advertised that loosening the handle or twist knob a bit would alter the aggressiveness of the razor. This was fine at the time as the blades were thicker and had more spring in them. When thin blades were introduced in very late 1929/very early 1930 they could no longer rely on the springiness of the blade to cater for the gap and some sort of clamping mechanism was needed to keep blade rigidity and also the gap from unwantedly changing.

Moving into the 1950's, the idea of different razors for different beards was still there and they manufactured three versions of the Superspeed. I would think that very few guys would have bought three razors to find their "best" one. This is a copy of the Gillette Advert in the Australian Womans Weekly dated 17th December 1958 showing the Superspeed trio. It still wasn't the "One for all beard types" razor. (Clicking on the image will open a large version in a new window) There are similar American adverts in 1956/7.

Gillette research told them that guys found shaving a chore and wanted it to be over in the least amount of time. Men ideally wanted to do a single pass, not multiple passes with multiple settings and with this in mind they designed the "Adjustable". There were two trains of thought on using an adjustable:
The first been - Choose your shave, if today you want a light shave use one of the low settings or if you want a closer shave use a higher setting.
The second was - Buy one razor, test out the different settings and find the one that suits you best. Once you found that setting, set it and forget it. This is why some razors have their dials stuck in one position, he found his "best" shave, left the dial alone and eventually soap gunked it up keeping it jammed at that setting.
This was the case with my Serial Toggle, I suspect that the owner found his ideal shave and left the dial in that position.

(NOTE: There is always an overlap between the model changes.)

1955 - The Serial Toggles.

Serial Toggle

There were no adjustables manufactured until the first quarter (D1) of 1958 when they manufactured two FatBoys and two Toggles. There was a Red Dot version and the now familar "Spring Indicator" version of each. The Red Dot FatBoys and the two Toggles were only produced for the first quarter (D1). Thereafter it was only the FatBoy, which had a very short run of about 4 years.

1958 to 1962 - The Early Years.
There were three broad categories of Adjustables during this time namely, the Bottom Dials, the Toggles and the FatBoys.
Adjustable razors was a new concept to Gillette and I guess with all new ideas your initial thoughts don't quite work out and you tweak your designs to "hopefully" meet your customers wants and also fit in with your manufacturing processes. It would also have been a time when they needed to test the market to see what their customers preferred, which they did for 4 years.

In no particular order - I'll start with the Bottom-Dial.
There are three different versions, the first two were really prototypes and were sent out to a test market and not sold. It is thought that they were sent out in and around 1957. I don't have either of these in my collection. They both have dials numbered 1-5.

The third Bottom-Dial was part of a special run in the last quarter of 1960 when they sold it along with Standard Toggles. I'm purely speculating here - We know that the first Slim was produced in the second quarter of 1960 (F2), so the phasing out of the FatBoy was already in motion. Once this decision was made, Gillette decided to get rid of the soon to be outdated stock, and released these Odd Balls with some marketing and now 60+ years later it has left us wondering exactly how these razors fitted into their timelines. The fact that these were sold with cases and literature leads me to believe that they were definitely not for testing.
I have one of these F4 Bottom-Dials.

Bottom Dial

Lets talk Toggles.
These are easily the most recognisable of the Gillette Adjustables and a favorite of collectors worldwide.
Their name comes from the Toggle mechanism that opens and closes the doors.

Chrome Toggle	Toggle

Now onto the FatBoys
There are three types of FatBoy, the Red Dot FatBoy, the Standard FatBoy and the Executive FatBoy.
The Red Dot FatBoy is by far the rarest of the FatBoys and was only produced in the first quarter of 1958 (although there is one known example of a F4 version). The indicator is a Red Dot as opposed to the Spring.
The Executive is 23 carat gold plated and has a few differences to the Standard FatBoy.

Red Dot FatBoy	Fatboy Executive	FatBoy

1961 to 1968 - The Slim Years.
The Slim was introduced in the fourth Quarter of 1961. In comparison to the FatBoy it had a long run of about 8 years.
Before they were introduced, Gillette must have done most of the tweaking because they remained pretty much unchanged during that time. There were two versions, the Standard Slim and the Aristocrat Slim.
The third Slim below is an anomoly in that has some Super Adjustable parts.

Slim	Slim Aristocrat	Slim / Super Adjustable Hybrid

1968 to 1988 - The Black Beauties.

Their official name was the Super Adjustable but they are more fondly called Black Beauties. They were introduced in the third quarter of 1968. It's pretty much a Slim with an aluminium handle, so was a cost-cutting exercise.
They first released the 84mm handle, but customers requested a longer handle so a year later they released the 109mm handle.
They had brass base plates and there were three versions, the 84 which had the 84mm handle, the 109 which had a 109mm long handle and the 109 Gold, which was as the name suggests a Gold Plated razor with a 109mm long handle.

In a further cost-cutting exercise they changed the brass base plate to a moulded plastic one. This was introduced in the first quarter of 1977 and ran through to the last quarter of 1981,

The last change was changing the knurling to a Diamond pattern and this was introduced in the first quarter on 1980 and ran until the end of the "Adjustables" era which was the second quarter of 1988, and when cartridges were all the rage.

It must be remembered that the Gillette model was (and still is) to sell the razor at either a very low margin or even a loss and to make their money on the sale of the blades. The patent on the DE Blade must have run out years before - so it made financial sense for them to stop selling the razors that took DE blades.

These are the five different Super Adjustables.

Super Adjustable 84	Super Adjustable 109 Brass Base	Super Adjustable 109 Gold	Super Adjustable 109 Plastic Base/Gillette knurl	Super Adjustable 109 Plastic Base/Diamond knurl

Although not an Adjustable in about October 2019 and after a break of about 40 years from DE's, Gillette announced a new DE Razor which was called a Gillette Heritage Safety Razor kit.

Gillette Franken - Adjustables
I have these two here because, although they are Franken-razors - all the pieces are Gillette.
They are also under the Franken section

Franken FatBoy	Franken Slim

The table below are various measurements on the different razors.
I've included the two Franken Razors because when I was taking the rest of the measurements, I also took them for my own curiosity.

These are the various blade gaps as supplied by Gillette (In Thou's).