Vintage Vaughan Chicago Blatz Opener and Tap Boy Pair, c. 1954–1963
Viridian Eclection
The Piece Two American bar tools from the same Chicago maker, both in plated steel and both showing the honest wear of use. The first is a flat bottle opener in the open frame pattern, a single pie...
The Piece
Two American bar tools from the same Chicago maker, both in plated steel and both showing the honest wear of use.
The first is a flat bottle opener in the open frame pattern, a single piece of steel pierced and shaped so the lifting jaw sits at one end and the finger hole at the other. Both faces are stamped in raised letters with a brewery name, so the piece is an advertising giveaway of the sort a distributor handed out by the case, and the maker name and city are stamped along the shank.
The second is a folding bar tool with a spear point can piercer at one end, a bottle lifter at the shoulder and a corkscrew that swings out of the body on a rivet. One face carries the maker name above the model name in an outlined display script; the reverse carries the patent number, the model name again, and the maker's address including the city postal zone.
History & Provenance
Both pieces come from Vaughan of Chicago, which for most of the twentieth century was the dominant American maker of the small steel implements that opened things. Vaughan's openers, piercers and corkscrews went out by the million, most of them free, stamped with the name of a brewery or a garage or a feed store, which is why they survive in such numbers and why the advertising examples are collected.
The folding tool dates precisely. Its stamped patent number corresponds to a United States design patent for a bar tool granted on 1 December 1953 to Michael J. La Forte of Park Ridge, Illinois, and assigned to Vaughan Manufacturing Company of Chicago. That sets the earliest possible date at the end of 1953.
The address gives the other end of the window, and this is the useful part. The stamp reads Chicago 24, a two digit postal zone. Postal zone numbers were introduced in American cities in 1943 and were replaced by the five digit ZIP code in July 1963. A tool stamped with a zone number therefore cannot have been made after 1963. Between the patent grant and the end of zone addressing, the piece belongs to a ten year window, which is a good deal tighter than most small metalware can be dated.
The brewery opener carries no patent date, but the same maker stamp, the same plated steel and the same stamping conventions place it alongside its companion.
Product Details
| Era | c. 1954–1963, documentary at both ends. The folding tool's stamped patent number matches a design patent for a bar tool granted 1 December 1953 to Michael J. La Forte and assigned to Vaughan Manufacturing Company of Chicago, setting the earliest date. Its address stamp carries a two digit city postal zone, a system used in American cities from 1943 until ZIP codes replaced it in July 1963, setting the latest |
| Maker | Vaughan, Chicago, Illinois |
| Contents | Two pieces. One flat open frame advertising bottle opener stamped on both faces with a brewery name. One folding bar tool with can piercer, bottle lifter and swing out corkscrew |
| Material | Plated steel |
| Marks | Brewery name raised on both faces of the flat opener with maker and city on the shank. Folding tool stamped with maker and model name to one face, patent number, model name and city with postal zone to the reverse |
| Condition | Good honest used condition on both. Plating worn and dulled at the working edges with scattered surface marking, as expected on tools that were used. No breaks, cracks or missing parts. Corkscrew swings and seats correctly. Cutting and lifting edges intact |
Why It Belongs in Your Home
Brewery advertising openers are one of the most collected categories of American small metalware, and a named brewery piece paired with a precisely datable tool from the same maker is a better proposition than either alone. Both still work, which is not a small thing; the folding tool in particular will open a bottle, pierce a can and pull a cork, which is more than most modern bar tools manage. On a bar cart, in a shadow box, or loose in a drawer with the corkscrews, they earn their place twice over.
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