After a bit of back and forth, a price was agreed upon for an unusual multitool with corkscrew. And, while the back and forth was back and forthing, I messaged Tommy, as I was at the wine shop and didn’t have O’Leary’s book handy.
The piece is marked PAT. PEND., and looked vaguely familiar.
Fortunately, Tommy was available, and had O’Leary handy, and sent back the following photo from the book.
Well, there certainly are a lot of similarities. But, the 1905 Arthur Merton Parker patent, as pictured in O’Leary, isn’t quite exact. On the other hand, it is pretty close.
Perhaps with the PAT PEND mark, this simply is an early version of the Arthur Merton Parker patent.
Maybe we should check the patent drawings…
We are getting closer, but not quite there. But, our man A. M. Parker, had other patents… Could this have been yet another can opener he created.
Digging a little deeper, I ran across this drawing from 1907
Okay… the handle looks closer to the piece that I just picked up, but the mechanism looks closer to the 1905 Parker patent…
Given that I was now home, I grabbed O’Leary and skimmed through, checking the Merton Patent first, and then BOO to see if the drawing existed there.
The drawing is indeed in BOO (Back of O’Leary) but is this PAT. PEND. piece an early version of the 1905 patent (#789,103) ? Is it an early version of the 1907 patent (#858,532).
Feel free to weigh in.
I have asked John Morris to bring his example of the 1905 Parker patent to the upcoming corkscrew meetings in Vancouver. It will be interesting to compare them side by side.
There are certain similarities to the No.9 combination tool made in England Reg.689051. See Ellis and Ellis British registered designs P.124