168

Found and Lost

A story from Reinhold Berndt

I live near Frankfurt/Germany and two times a month I visit antique markets in

the Rhein-Main area, on the hunt for corkscrews and other collectibles. Once, a

year ago, I went to the Wiesbaden market for selling. I sell junk and cheap stuff,

just to make a little money to spend for other junk...

Three years ago, when I was strolling over a flea market in the area, I discovered

a small tool which reminded me of a pronged cork puller. It had a turned

(vertical) handle made of wood with brass mountings on one end. On the end of

the handle, right in the center, was a shaft with a short spike (like an ice pick)

joined to a metal bar, which, bent into a 90 degree position, ended in a blade or

kind of a prong.

At first sight it seemed to be a pronged cork puller, but what made it suspicious

was the fact, that there was just

one

prong. The shape of this small tool looked

very strange to me, too. Finally I came to the conclusion that I

‘

ve found a turner

‘

s

tool or a craftsman

‘

s blade to work on leather. But it was nice and the price for

this item was very low. Finally I purchased this tool for less than $ 5.00. Back

home I put it in a cardboard box in the basement where some other junk was

waiting to be sold once a year...

Some months later I was browsing in the Internet, looking for particular German

corkscrew patent drawings. And then, by chance, I found a drawing which

exactly showed the tool I

‘

ve found! It was described as a (very early) German

―

Klingen-Pfropfenzieher

‖

(bladed cork extractor), patented by Ignaz Fischer in

1880 (No. 10,982)! What a great find!