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Retrievers

Did you ever push a cork into the bottle while trying to pull it out? Methods for

removing corks from inside bottles have been around for a long, long time. This article

is not intended to be all inclusive but to give an overview of cork retrievers. It spans the

period from 1863 through 1940.

Proctor Patent

Morrill Patent

Bielefeld / Schwartz Patent

Stephen Proctor of York was granted British Patent No. 2,664 on October 28, 1863 for his

―

Improved Instrument for Extracting Corks from Bottles

.‖

The sharp hooks are

intended to cut up the cork if it is too large to go through the neck of the bottle and then

smaller pieces can be drawn out by the hook. Or they can be shaken out if small

enough. The Proctor extractor shows a graphic of the operation on the shank.

The inventions of Jesse Morrill of New York and Germans Francis Bielefeld and Charles

Schwartz are the earliest U. S. Patents for this type of cork extractor. Morrill's U. S.

Patent No. 42,784 was issued May 17, 1864. Morrill claimed

―

an improved cork drawer

with grooved prongs, or with grooved and serrated prongs.

‖

His two prongs would

sink into the sides of the cork taking up no more room than the cork coming through

the bottle neck.

Bielefeld and Schwartz described the operation of their device,

―

We draw a cork from

the body of a bottle by first inserting the metallic spring, then turning the bottle neck

downward the cork falls into the neck, and by drawing the handle the cork is readily

withdrawn.

‖

U. S. Patent No. 47,161 was issued April 4, 1865.