23

The American Corkscrew Industry

This article is from the October 10, 1891 issue of

The

Manufacturer and Builder

.

Corkscrews are made by the million in the United States.

Newark, N. J., is the principal seat of the industry of corkscrew

making, one firm in that city is making and selling 150,000,000

in a single year. If the corkscrews, which average three inches in

length, that were made during the year 1886, could have been

laid end to end, they would have reached from New York to

San Francisco, and then spanned the broad Pacific and touched

the shores of Japan. That will give some idea of the number,

says

Iron Industry

. But this is only one firm. Could all the

corkscrews made last year be known, there must be enough manufactured to supply

every man, woman and child on earth with one. To make the 150,000,000 of the Newark

firm, required seventy-five men simply for twisting of the screws, to say nothing of

making of wooden and other styles of handles. They worked the year round at it.

One would hardly think that more than three or four varieties are required, but there

are about forty on the market. They include ring handle, steel wire screws for

demijohns and large bottles, the double ring, handily encased pocket screw, the folding

screw, and the broad wire handle screw. Some time ago an ice-pick and a cigar-box

opener was made with a screw concealed in the steel tube handle. The tube can be

slipped off, and the ice-pick forms the handle for the screw. Another novelty has a

brush in the handle, so that the colored waiter may not be obliged to turn his fingers

around the inside of the neck of the wine bottle to remove particles of cork and dust.

For champagne bottles, a screw is made with a blade in one end of the handle to cut the

wire around the cork. Another kind contains both the knife and the brush on the

handle. The power corkscrew is an ingenious arrangement, which saves the knees and

arms from a tussel with an obstinate and fractious cork. A cone of steel fits over the

neck of the bottle, and the screw draws the cork while the cone presses the bottle.

In addition to his corkscrew patents, a New York man amused himself by twisting up

wire in almost every conceivable shape, thereby supplying the five-cent counter with

novelties and himself with a comfortable income in addition to that previously made by

his ingenious faculties. The spiral thumb-screw which can be pushed into a board and

easily removed after serving as a temporary hat-rack, is one of his inventions. It is only

a piece of twisted wire, and can be purchased for $1 a gross. Spiral paper hooks, wall

hooks, hat and coat racks, spiral picture nails, spiral copper tacks and stair buttons, card

suspenders and holders, bill files, soap holders, pickle forks, toasting forks, and shoe

button hooks are his inventions, and are manufactured in Newark.