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| 24bb-4 Nutcrackers (Shire Album 399) By Robert Mills 2001. Shire Publications, Ltd., Cromwell House, Church Street, Princes Risborough, Buckinghamshire, England HP27 9AA UK Internet for direct orders: http://www.shirebooks.co.uk Internet for Author's Web Site: Nutcracker Collectors Club [UK]: http://www.nutcrackers.org.uk/ Paper. 40 Pp ISBN Number 0-7478-0523-7. $11.95 plus S&H Subjects: Collectors and Collecting. Nutcrackers ([Hand-held Implements) -- History. Nutcrackers ([Hand-held] Implements) -- Collectors and collecting. Our world is filled with people collecting one thing or another. Eminent nutcracker collector, Bob Mills, wanted to create this book to help other collectors both identify what nutcrackers that they have on hand and provide historical evidence that shows such devices go back to even Ancient Grecian times of 330 BC. Pictured are blacksmithed creations of the 15th and 16th centuries all the way to novelty items of the present. Mills shows that you may have such nuts as hazelnuts, walnuts, pine nuts or my Louisiana region's pecans. And it would be a logical historical progression of pre-historic man to want to invent something beyond using his teeth or a rock to harvest the nuts that he found. Hand-held nutcrackers vary widely. Mills shows us that there are two general types, figural and non-figural. Many of then novelty items, such as dogs, animals, etc., fall within the non-figural. This means that they use indirect action, such as placing the nut in a dog's mouth to crack the nut. If you imagine a blacksmith's tongs, then you get some idea of the non-figural types, designed to just do the job. Mills terms them as a direct action style. We also find screw-type nut crackers where increased pressure does the job. But many of the oldest types were often what Mills terms a percussion type. Man simply devised a platform to hold the nut before he used some type of hammer device to crush the nut. In the progression of history you will find a variety of them represented in this photo-journalistic, information packed book. And Mills tells us that the nutcrackers that you receive in the traditional gift boxes are often a reversible type which appeared during the Victorian and Edwardian periods. Regarding what materials that man used to create such devices, Mills details such things as wood, iron, brass, porcelain, aluminum, bronze and even ivory. And we see the use of inexpensive, metal plated substances when that process came into existence. But such hand-held implements would not answer the need for shelling large quantities of nuts. When us "cajuns" gather our own pecans, we often use a device, which Mills terms the "Rocket" nutcracker. But this will not answer the need when we find ourselves with a "large* harvest. Then we go to a place where machinery is available to "crack" the nuts, so we can store them before the process of nut removal. Mills kindly offers information on when nut-cracking machinery came on the scene, such as the early efforts of the H. M. Quackenbush Company to create machinery for that purpose in 1878. Concluding portions include tips on assembling your own nutcracker collection, suggested titles for further research, information of nutcracker associations and museums that have nutcracker exhibits. Chuck Hamsa Reviewers Consortium Lafayette, Louisiana __________________________________________________________________________________
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