Antique Cork Screw.

Engineering at its finest.

c1900

This corkscrew features a sturdy twisted metal shaft measuring 10cm form the wooden handle.

Method engineered is the twisted shaft screws into the cork and begins to pull it out in one movement.

Superb condition

History

The design of the corkscrew may have been derived from the gun worm, which was a device from at least the early 1630s used by men to remove unspent charges from a musket's barrel in a similar fashion.

The corkscrew is possibly an English invention, due to the tradition of beer and cider, and Treatise on Cider by John Worlidge in 1676 describes "binning of tightly corked cider bottles on their sides", although the earliest reference to a corkscrew is, "steel worm used for the drawing of Corks out of Bottles" from 1681.

In 1795, the first corkscrew patent was granted to the Reverend Samuel Henshall, in England. The clergyman affixed a simple disk, now known as the Henshall Button, between the worm and the shank. The disk prevents the worm from going too deep into the cork, forces the cork to turn with the turning of the crosspiece, and thus breaks the adhesion between the cork and the neck of the bottle. The disk is designed and manufactured slightly concave on the underside, which compresses the top of the cork and helps keep it from breaking apart.

A person who collects corkscrews is a helixophile