#Antique #Pie #Crimpers #Fanciful #Slices #History #WorthPoint
During America’s enormously profitable whaling industry in the 18th and 19th centuries, seamen had a lot of downtime, which they would spend making scrimshaw crafts as souvenirs and gifts for loved ones.
Some of these items were utilitarian objects like pie crimpers. Also known as jagging wheels, scrimshaw pie crimpers were made in various forms, including fanciful unicorns, snakes, sea monsters, and more risque shapes like women’s legs.
Pie crimpers are valued today as decorative kitchen implements and pieces of folk art by collectors who are willing to pay thousands of dollars for the best examples.
EARLY PIE CRIMPERS
Most professional and home bakers today use their fingers to crimp the edges of their pies or a fork or spoon to create decorative patterns; others, however, rely on modern pie crimpers to do the work.
Pie crimpers have been used in kitchens since at least the 16th century. The most basic examples have a straight handle and a thin-bladed fluted or jagged wheel (hence why they’re also called jagging wheels). They were made for cutting pastry, crimping the edges of pie crust to help seal in the filling for better and more even cooking, and creating a decorative, fluted edge into the crust. Early versions were usually made of brass and also had a large spoon on one end.
Though these early pie crimpers are highly collectible, the most prized and valuable today are the ornate bone and ivory examples made by whalers in the 18th and 19th centuries.
WELCOMED GIFTS FROM THE SEA
During whale-hunting expeditions, sailors could be separated from their loved ones for years. Average voyages for large ships could last three to four years and around six months for smaller vessels, so they had a lot of time to make crafts while away at sea.
Leftover parts of whales, like jawbones and teeth, and sometimes even walrus tusks, were used to carve a variety of decorative and utilitarian objects. Pie crimpers were among the most common scrimshaw objects sailors made for the women in their lives.
Pie crimpers may at first seem like unusual objects for whalemen to carve, but in context, it makes perfect sense why they were so popular. The American diet at the time included a lot of pie—both savory meat and sweet fruit varieties. New England, where the whaling industry was primarily based, particularly enjoyed pie, which was a staple on dinner tables since the first settlers arrived there in the 17th century.
With so many pies being baked, multi-tool crimpers were a welcomed gift for the kitchen and helped people easily differentiate between meat or berry pies they baked based on the crimping patterns.
While generally thought of as pie-baking tools, crimpers could be used for making any pastries. Though they are utilitarian items, sailors treated pie crimpers as pieces of art, adding their own whimsical touches to their creations and giving them creative shapes.
Crimper handles were made in elaborate forms by skilled sailors, including birds, dogs, other animals, flowers, hearts, leaves, sea serpents (a popular motif), stars, and mythical sea creatures like the hippocampus. With the upper body of a horse and the lower body of a fish, the hippocampus likely derived from the miniature seahorses found in the tropical waters of North and South America. These forms are rare, and prices reflect that: this hippocampus crimper sold for $11,400.
Some pie crimpers were also made in what was considered to be a “naughty” form at the time: a woman’s leg wearing a boot. These are also rare and desirable forms.
Sailors usually carved a fork on their pie crimpers that were used to poke holes in the upper pie crust for venting and allowing steam to escape while baking. More elaborate examples sometimes also included multiple crimping wheels that could imprint different patterns on pie crusts, knives for cutting off excess pastry, and tart tampers on the end that doubled as decorative stamps, as this three-wheeled example has.
COLLECTING PIE CRIMPERS
Though pie crimpers fell out of regular use in the mid-20th century, collectors prize them today as little pieces of folk art and still-functional kitchen tools.
The earliest crimpers were commonly made of brass, iron, horn, and wood. Some were also made from coins. According to the WorthPoint Price Guide, early examples like these have sold between $5 and $720 in the past few years.
But the vast majority of pie crimpers found today are made of whalebone, whale ivory, or walrus ivory. The more ornately carved examples, with elaborately shaped or pierced handles and other distinctive details and features, will generally command the highest prices, and rare examples can sell for tens of thousands of dollars. Some pie crimpers are so ornamental that they are nonfunctional, but collectors don’t mind.
Unless you’re super lucky, maritime pie crimpers are one of those antiques that you’ll rarely, if ever, randomly find while out thrifting. Collectors looking to buy authentic bone and ivory pie crimpers generally need to buy them from reputable antiques dealers or auction houses like Eldred’s Auction Gallery of East Dennis, Massachusetts, one of WorthPoint’s Industry Partners.
Maritime art and scrimshaw are among Eldred’s specialties, and pie crimpers are almost always offered in the maritime auctions it holds each year, so keep an eye out.
Adina K. Francis has been a writer and editor in the antiques and collectibles field for more than 20 years. She has a bit of an obsession with the Victorians and thinks that dogs are one of life’s greatest gifts.
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