The Two-Fulcrum Nut Cracker: A Pick Kept in the Handle

One cracker cannot suit both a small pecan and a big walnut, and the pick that goes with it is always lost on the table. Herbert Story of Kearney, New Jersey, received US 417,951, dated 24 December 1889, for a combined nut cracker and picker "useful and convenient" and "neat in appearance and at a small cost": the jaws pivot on a variable fulcrum with one place for small nuts and one for larger nuts, and one handle is a tube in which the nut pick is kept, screwed in, until it is wanted. He wrote plainly: "I do not claim, broadly, a combined nut cracker and picker, as such implements, are not new". This rung works out squeeze and handle spread for two fulcrum holes, then builds the cracker from flat bar with a brass-tube handle and cracks pecans and walnuts in each hole.