154

Fig. 4 Another of Painter's 1892 Crown Caps

Fig. 5. Painter's Opener

Note that the cap in Figure 4 also contains a loop, and the drawing also shows a hooked

tool for lifting it. On February 6, 1894 Painter received patent

number 514,200 for a tool to lift his crimped crown caps, and

on the opposite end was his hook for lifting those containing

a loop. That patent is shown in Figure 5.

Now, back to the All-Ways opener. Figure 6 shows an

illustration from Ron MacLean's publication

Common

Corkscrews-III

printed in 1990. The

―

All-Ways

‖

tool was often

marked with two patent numbers, Clough's October 16, 1900

patent (#659,649) for the corkscrew and Baseler's April 30,

1901 patent (#673,153) for the crown cap puncture point (the

intermediate point) on the extractor blade at the other end.

The extractor blade on the All-Ways performs three

functions - it lifts crown caps, punctures the cap so that it

cannot be reused (the intermediate point), and serves as a

hook (the tip) for removing a bottle seal that has a loop in it

(often termed a

―

patent

‖

stopper). Baseler's 1901 patent,

shown in Figure 7, was for a cap puncturing function and

was assigned to the Augustus W. Stephens Mfg. Company of

Cambridgeport, Massachusetts who manufactured the All-

Ways tool.

Fig. 6. All-Ways Opener