Corkscrews

[jhuether]

Two years ago I took a break from the hobby to join the army, since then I took up a new hobby of wine-making. Now I am back from Afghanistan and my wife and I have a house up here in beautiful upstate New york, it is time to get back into reenacting. So here is my question: does anyone have any information on period corkscrews or wine screws. I have looked on a few websites but found next to nothing. Any help will be greatly appreciated. Thanks.

Jason Huether
Lazy Skinners Society

[Virginia Mescher]

Re: Corkscrews

Two years ago I took a break from the hobby to join the army, since then I took up a new hobby of wine-making. Now I am back from Afghanistan and my wife and I have a house up here in beautiful upstate New york, it is time to get back into reenacting. So here is my question: does anyone have any information on period corkscrews or wine screws. I have looked on a few websites but found next to nothing. Any help will be greatly appreciated. Thanks.

Jason Huether
Lazy Skinners Society

I looked in my copy of the _Illustrated Catalogue of American Hardware of the Russell and Erwin Manufacturing Company_ (1865) and found an entire page on corkscrews. Since the reprint if copyrighted, I can't post the pictures but on http://www.mindspring.com/~gordon9/index.html there are some similar images of the corkscrews shown in the above book.

In the second image, the bottom and left look exactly like what was in the hardware catatlogue. It also showed a folding corkscrew just like the bottom right in the fifth image.

The catalogue also showed two more styles but I couldn't find anything similar to the ones shown.

The patent dates listed are later but the overall shape and style are like those in the 1865 catatlogue.