159
Unless some contrary evidence comes to light, I think we must conclude that Clough's
only involvement was to provide the corkscrews for the Cigar Tip Perforator, much as
he supplied Stephens with the corkscrews for the All-Ways.
After writing the
above, I received news
from Barry Taylor - he
reported that he
recently found another
example of a Stephens
sheath with Cigar Tip
Perforator. Barry's example is clearly marked
―
A. W. Stephens Mfg. Co. Pat. June 2,
1908
‖
and the sheath advertises
―
Capt. T. Mills Bottling Works, 220 Broad St. Waverly,
N.Y.
‖
Two additional corkscrew sheath patents were issued to Augustus Stephens..
Patent #982,893 for a
―
Bottle Cap Remover
‖
was filed by Stephens on December 10,
1910 and issued to him on January 31, 1911. It looks remarkably similar to Clough's 1910
Decapitator, however upon close inspection one will see a slight variation. With
Clough's Decapitator, the cap lifter was pinned directly to the wooden sheath. Stephens'
improvement was to pin the cap lifter to a metal stud that was fitted into the butt end of
the sheath. Stephens described his improvement as
“
an improved means for pivotally
connecting the [lifting] dog with the holder in such a manner as to prevent liability of
