What did you get for Christmas almost eleven years ago?

The use of customer reviews and letters of  recommendation do - possible to the surprise of people who have grown up since online shopping became a huge thing - go back decades, if not centuries. During my meandering online wanderings I've found this example from a century ago.

As far as a little searching can tell me, Ralph V. Hinkle was no one special... not famous, at least not outside his immediate area. An Every-man, if you prefer that term, someone other customers could relate to.

There is off course the possibility of the letter being fake, written by the Rubberset marketing department, but would that be any different than today?
As an aside my oldest brush still in rotation is about a decade old too; an Omega 10048 - it shed a few hairs the first year or so, but is otherwise even better now than when I took it out of the box.

I look forward to the day that I can say I have a decade of daily use on my brushes. Let's see, each gets used once every 4 months or so, that's 3x/year. If I'm thinking this out correctly that means in a bit over 100 years I'll have that sort of use on each brush. I hope the body lasts that long but I don't see that happening.

But back in the day they didn't have shaving and gear as a hobby as we do today. It was more of a chore and the tools used were just that, tools.

I like that Ralph's stationery is from the church where he is a minister.

A man of God wouldn't exaggerate when discussing his Rubberset.