This vintage gadget is a manual bottle capper, used to seal glass bottles with metal crown caps.
Before automatic bottling equipment became common, home brewers and small businesses relied on tools like this to securely crimp caps onto bottles of soda, beer, cider, and other beverages. Simply placing the bottle under the press and squeezing the handles would lock the cap tightly in place.
Built from heavy steel with sturdy wooden handles, these bottle cappers were made to last and many are still in working condition decades later.
If you recognized it right away, you probably remember a time when bottling drinks by hand was a common household task.
