Patent, Patent, Corkscrew.

It suprises me how many different variations of corkscrew have over time been manufactured.  Regularly corkscrews come to light that I have never seen before, below is an example that falls into this catagory.

This English Straight Pull corkscrew is of a very high quality, the rosewood handle is finely turned and shaped, the shaft has interesting turnings.  It was most likely manufactured in the 19th century.  Having only seen this one example, I would catagorise it as very rare.

At the bottom of the shaft above the worm there are two toughened cutting blades.  These blades are very sharp and swivel on the shaft, they are finger operated.  Using finger pressure the two blades are pushed together cutting through string or wire that may secure a cork into the top of a bottle.

Operating the cutting blades is awkward and the cutting device is not very effective.

A corkscrew of this design would have been expensive to make.  Each of the blades would have been heat treated, toughened, to give them a durable cutting edge.  Additionally the blades have been ground into shape, this can be seen on close examination of the surfaces. 

Below is an image showing a close up of the blades,

Why is this corkscrew design rare? 

Personally I think the answer is two fold.  First of all, it is very likely this corkscrew was expensive to buy due to its complicated design and expensive manufacturing costs.  Secondly, this design does not work effectively, due to the awkwardness of operating the cutting blades.   A large amount of force would have been needed to cut through the wire using only finger pressure, especially when the cutting edge on the blades had over time become dull.

The cutting blades were intended to be operated by finger pressure, if not, there would only need to be one blade present and that blade could be fixed ridgedly, a much cheaper manufacturing process.

The image above shows a close up view of the shaft with its markings.  We can see the word "PATENT" clearly stamped on the shaft twice.  What is the relevance of this marking?  There is no known patent protection granted for a corkscrew of this type. 

Many corkscrew makers are known to have stamped there inventions "PATENT" even though they never sought protection under the law.   This gave unscrupulous makers an unfair ecomonic advantage over there competitors.  Applying for patent protection for an invention was a very expensive process.  Marking you invention "PATENT" gave the item more importance and enabled the retailer or manufacturer to achieve a higher price, as well as making the item easier to sell and seem more important.