Tools we can't figure

[cogar]

And more nut crackers!  (Also saw 2 places referred to as a Lobster cracker.) So far I have found over 10 and they are all located in the United Kingdom and most are referred to as from Victorian to early 1900's.  This has been referred to as a "Reversible hinge" or "double jointed" nut cracker. 

Well now, I have serious doubts that any of those "tools" were originally produced to be used as "nutcrackers".

Try "picturing" yourself holding a "nut" in one hand and trying to use that tool with your other hand.

Without a "spring assisted" opening of the "jaws" ...... you would need 3 hands to be cracking nuts.

And by the way, ...... just what were the different types/varities of "hard-shell" nuts that they were "cracking" ..... that they needed two (2) different jaw opening available on/with a single nutcracker?

 And ps: my January 1908 Baltimore Bargain House wholesale catalogue lists "spring loaded nutcrackers" for $1.28/doz.

Historical trivia:

One of Quackenbush's most famous and most successful inventions came in 1878, when he created the first nutcracker and nutpick. In 1913, he patented the spring-jointed nutcracker, a nickel-plated, solid steel nutcracker with four picks. Nearly 200 million of these nutcrackers have been sold worldwide since then.  http://www.ideafinder.com/history/inventions/nutcracker.htm

And a Quackenbush BB Gun ..... is a rare find.

[mart]

Better than that old pair of slip joint pliers we used to use !!  On second thought,, those pliers worked pretty darn good !!

[KC]

Sounds great to me!!!

By-the-way Mart, storms are a comin' tomorrow!  Hope the hail is kind to all of us!

[mart]

Cross your fingers KC !!  Hail on my garden would not be a good thing !!

[KC]

Cogar I know that we have several different sizes of pecans here on our property.  The best tasting pecans are small small ones (too small for the electric cracking machines).  The paper shells are much larger and don't need a spring loaded cracker and are great for hand cracking.  The Wichita and Western vary in size and thickness of shell - the further down the cracker toward the hand the better to crack.  We actually have several different crackers for them.  LOL  In fact tooooooo many!

[mart]

Those little small pecans are native pecans and have twice as much flavor as the papershells !!  But sure takes longer to get enough for a pie !!

[KC]

Yep they are the native pecans Mart.  No doubt the squirrels planted all of those around us!    Noone will understand until they crack those stubborn little shells open and taste the flavorful bites of nuttiness!!!  Agree it takes a l-o-n-g time to get enough for a pie but soooooo worth it!

[cogar]

Cogar I know that we have several different sizes of pecans here on our property.

KC, unless I’m mistaken, I really don’t think one could squeeze this “nutcracker” hard enough to be cracking very many of your pecans.

Note 2nd picture, …….. the handles will not close any closer than the width of that “blade”.

[mart]

I bet that smaller end is for pecans and smaller nuts and the wider one for English walnuts !!  He did say the handles can go all the way around didn`t he ??  That would prevent the handles from crushing the shell instead of just cracking it !! I hate to pick all those little pieces out !!

[mxyplqx]

I have cracked thousands of walnuts as we get 50 to 100 lbs of them a year for at least 30 years. That silly thing is not for cracking walnuts. Filberts maybe. Walnuts? No. Pecans? I doubt it. There are special hand pecan crackers which cut off each end then mash the center. 3-5 squeezes per nut.  I did several hundred one year - never again.

Walnuts are best cracked from the ends not the sides. I crack about 12 per minute with a hammer and anvil. With much practice I get mostly halves maybe 90%.

[mart]

But you are using new equipment !!  I always crack walnuts from the sides !!  Then just separate the two halves and remove the nut usually intact !!  But then thats the Texas way !!

[mxyplqx]

:-)

[mart]

https://books.google.com/books?id=ZhxRMPg4Y4gC&pg=PA12&lpg=PA12&dq=What+are+the+oldest+english+cast+iron+nutcrackers&source=bl&ots=C4bza5xo0C&sig=ssTEF2r7NbpmeZvGrl3v59uzXOg&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwi78fqc_5jMAhUE4D4KHadODmwQ6AEIOzAF#v=onepage&q=What%20are%20the%20oldest%20english%20cast%20iron%20nutcrackers&f=false

Here are more made similarly !! Just because its a nutcracker no one said how well it worked !!  I bet there were many made that did not do a terrific job !!  Like everything else they evolved over the years !!

[cogar]

One of these days I am going to sell this one.

Big or small, ...... short or long, ...... makes no difference, it'll crack them all.   

[mart]

LOL!!  Thats cheating Cogar !!  I don`t have one like that !!