PAUL F. WOBST of Milwaukee wanted you to shave your vegetables, rather than peel them.
He was granted Patent No. 1,752,768 on April 1, 1930 for unique PEELER utilizing “ordinary safety razor blades.” And no, it wasn’t an April Fools’ Day joke.
“In peelers as ordinarily made, no provision is made for the sharpening of the cutting edge,” Wobst said in his patent application. “It has been found from actual experiments with these devices that they very often become dull and ineffective.”
His solution was “to provide a novel form of peeler in which ordinary safety razor blades may be used, and may be detachably held in a secure and yet readily removable position so that there is no danger to the operator.”
The 6-1/2-inch device is marked MARVEL PAT. 1752768 and was designed to hold a blade with three tiny braces (see the punched-out holes above the MARVEL marking) on the inside of the peeler.
“This invention provides a very handy peeler which has an extremely sharp cutting edge and one in which this sharp cutting edge may be readily maintained by substituting other safety razor blades, as required,” Wobst said. (The 1930s Marvel is not to be confused with the more recent 5-inch Heuck Company Marvel grater/peeler).
Inventor Wobst, who listed his age at 47 in the 1940 census, was granted only one other patent, but it is worth noting. Patent No. 1,051,939 issue February 4, 1913 was for a “resilient tire.” He said his objective was “to provide simple, economical, durable and efficient non-pneumatic resilient tires for the wheels of automobiles and other vehicles.”
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(c) 2020, Donald Thornton. All rights reserved.