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- A Family Heirloom
A Page from the past
Hand-held corn shellers speak volumes
The first time Olan Bentley saw a hand-held corn sheller was in October 1983.
"I was buying a collection of cast iron seats," he recalled "and I saw a collection of hand-held corn shellers that belonged to the father of the person I was purchasing the implement seats from. I didn't buy any shellers that day, but I was intrigued by them."
Nearly three years would pass until this Ohio grain farmer attended a collectors club meeting and saw an Illinois couple's display. That did it: He soon became the proud owner of two 'nubbers', shelling devices used to make quick work of removing kernels from the tip and butt ends of field corn. "They told me hand-held corn shellers, commonly used on farms during the lat and early 1900s, were that I should not expect to find very many of them," Olan said. "I decided then and there that collecting them was a challenge I could not resist."
Hand-held corn shellers served many useful purposes on the turn-of-the-century farm. A farm wife might have carried one in her apron pocket when she went out to feed the chickens, kids found they saved wear-and-tear on little fingers when it came time to remove kernels from ears of popcorn, and farmers utilized them to procure the next year's crop, since seed corn could not be shelled with an iron sheller, for fear of cracking the seed coat and ruining chances of germination.
Homemade hand corn shellers of various designs have been made for as long as corn has been grown.
were manufactured in any quantity." Many of the patents came from Pennsylvania, Ohio and Indiana.
Proving these age artifacts are as unique and varied as the industrious individuals who invented them, shellers were made in many styles with many variations in size, design and manufacturer's names on each type. Names given to them by collectors include clam shell, cone or sleeve, T-type, tongs, skillet, scrubbers and nubbers.
Olan's favorite find is a sheller that looks like a bird.
"A friend of mine had seen a sheller in a private museum in Tennessee, and I arranged to go see it," he said. "Of course, it was not for sale, but after we talked about my goals for collecting and preserving these artifacts, the owner agreed to sell me the sheller for $200. I'm now the proud owner of an Eagle corn sheller, patented January 1870 in Harrisburg, Pa., one of only four known pieces found in collections within the U.S."