Nutcrackers and Grinders

Some nutcrackers consist of a small hammer and an anvil; most use levered jaws or screw-clamp jaws to crack nuts. The earliest are cast metal or hardwood, with two hinged arms, corrugated near the hinge to secure the nut before squeezing the handles. Small silver-plated versions for table use, which cracked small nuts one way and larger nuts when the handles were reversed, came with nutpicks beginning in the 1880s. The corrugations look like animal teeth, and since the 1870s a menagerie of fully figural nutcrackers (including squirrels, dogs, and alligators) has been patented. The lower jaw lever sticks out behind like a tail.