Gillette Blade Dispenser

I picked up a razor off of the 'bay and it came with one of these:


I confess I've seen pictures of them before, but never saw one in person.  Old TV ads show the guy thumbing out a blade and catching the notch of his TTO to load a blade.  This one had blades in it, but they don't seem to want to come out.  They don't "thumb" out for me like they do in the old TV commercial.  

1)  How, exactly do you use it?

2) When did these come out, anyway?  It came from the seller with a '48 Super-Speed, but I doubt they had these doodahs in the '40s.  Or did they?

3) I presume this is supposed to be disposable... use the blades from the top, and "bank" them in the bottom when they've been used, then toss the whole thing when you're out of blades.  But it'd be cool to reload it.  Anybody tried?

4)  Wouldn't this rig DULL the blades?  Seems worse than getting a tuck of individually wrapped blades to me...

It's a fascinating little oddball thing that came with the razor, but now I'm intrigued!!!
  :-)
- Bax

They might be rusted together, I've got many of those dispensers, and used many of them when I started shaving back in 1958. If you get them freed up I wouldn't use them.

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+1 I use some vintage stainless blades but the blue carbon steel ones didn't survive too well.  I've read of using a dip in rubbing alcohol to loosen them, but as said why?  There are stainless blades commonly available like the Gillette Spoilers in the same pack - in fact the Spoilers and some of its contemporaries are probably superior to modern blades

I have reloaded one after loosening the blades with care & good results

I wouldn't  use them. If they were in good shape they'd thumb out easily plus being carbon blades unsealed, airtight,  NO!. I have a few  of very good vintage carbons but it took a long time of searching for ones that check all the boxes. They give really great shaves. But I'm retired and willing to spend the time finding them, and it's been getting so much harder to find them over the years that I stopped  searching. 
Long story short, vintage carbons, unsealed,  sticking together says don't.

I wouldn't dream of using the BLADES. 
I was only interested in the dispenser!
   ;-)
- Bax