The following day, my great-grandmother packed her husband’s lunch pail and kissed him “goodbye” as he set off for work. She waited, spent the morning tailoring a suit for one of her neighbors. Finally, the news she had been waiting for arrived. One of the Carpino boys that lived next door showed up on her doorstep and explained how her husband had been taken to the local doctor.

“What for?” she had asked, her hands hiding the smile beginning to thaw across her face.

“Something he ate,” the Carpino boy told her. “He bit into an apple with a sewing needle stuck inside.”

A week later and my great-grandmother was at the local department store picking out an apple peeler, chaperoned by her dear husband with his jaw bandaged shut.

As you can already tell by the pictures attached to this thread [images omitted], this antique apple peeler has endured for over a century and provided sustenance for four generations of family members.

I’ve gone through various documents my grandmother had left me and consequently discovered a letter my great-grandmother had sent to her sister (who was living in Turin, Italy at the time) and she details going to the department store with her husband to pick out an apple peeler. The letter is dated August the 5th, 1897. So, that means, in no uncertain times, the apple peeler was manufactured in 1897. Possibly even earlier – 1896. I can happily scan a copy of the letter and include it with the item for the sake of verifying the appliance’s authenticity. I’m also more than happy to send along a copy of the letter for a historian to verify prior to purchase.

You might be interested to know not only was the apple peeler’s purchase of the sordid variety, but the appliance furnished the hands of one of the state of Connecticut’s beloved composers – Charles Ives. My grandmother, frequently guilty of repeating the same story at a family gathering on separate occasions, would often regale those who were patient enough to listen more than once with the story of how the apple peeler was once used by Charles Ives, a family friend, at a picnic in 1948 – the very year after he had won the Pulitzer Prize.