36

Germany

In 1953 Josef Schäffler of Peiting, Germany resurrected the ideas of

Stapley (1914), Bauer (1921), and Reitinger (1943) by registering, once

again, a cork ejector mechanism to attach to an external pump. He took

the idea a little further by adding a stationary support. He applied for his

patent on September 18, 1953 and was issued German Patent No.

1,670,395 on January 14, 1954 for

Korkenzieher

mittels einer Fussluftpumpe

. This invention signaled

the new post World War II era for the further

development and refinement of air cork ejectors.

A month after Schäffler applied for his patent,

Wilhelm Hess from Teningen, Baden applied for a

patent for his

Gerät zum Entkorken von Flaschen od.

Dgl. durch Druckluft

. This handheld ejector was again

using the hand pump type principle where the piston is pulled and

pushed up and down through the cylinder rather than the cylinder

serving as the pump "handle." Hess was granted German Patent

No. 679,583 on July 7, 1954.

It wasn't until 1962 that another air cork ejector was patented. Again the

"tire pump" principle was applied to a handheld device in the invention of

Otto Kirscht. He applied for his patent on October 10 and German No.

1,864,639 was granted December 27, 1962. The key to his invention was

a non-return check valve in a normal hand pump.

With Robert Pollak's September 20, 1962 British patent application for what was to

become the "Corkette", the English appeared to have beaten the German inventors to the

new wave of handheld cork ejectors. The British patent was also applied for in Germany

(September 19, 1963) and No. 1,882,877 was granted November 14, 1963 for the

Flaschenkorkenentferner.