10

About Corkscrews

This rather lengthy, but interesting article appeared in the

New York Sun

in 1884. Photos have

been added.

The corkscrew is a contrivance to facilitate the removal of corks from bottles. When a

cork protrudes from the neck of the bottle far enough to admit of grasping it with the

hand or clinching it with the teeth, a corkscrew is unnecessary. But when a cork is flush

with the bottle's mouth, or, through unskillful manipulation, has become lodged down

in the neck, a corkscrew is not only a convenience but almost a necessity. The bottle

may be emptied of its liquid contents by crowding the cork down through the neck

with a penholder or any other suitable article that may be at hand, but this method of

opening a bottle is generally regarded as inelegant.

There are several kinds of corkscrews. That which has been the

longest in use is the simplest. For several hundred years it was the

best, until a genius added an improvement which brought it to

perfection. The primeval corkscrew consisted of a wire, pointed at one

end, twisted into a spiral with about five turns tempered to give

rigidity to it, and provided with a wooden handle like that of a gimlet.

The spiral part of the wire was about two inches long after being

twisted, the part left straight was about the same length, and the

wooden cross piece was round, and about three inches in length and half an inch in

diameter. The handle was made fast to the metal by putting the wire through a hole in

the wood and clinching it. The metal was not burnished, nor was the wood polished or

painted. It is safe to say that there never was a corkscrew job which could not have been

accomplished with one of these primeval corkscrews.