THE TOOTHPICK AS A COLLECTIBLE
The history of the toothpick is as long as the history of mankind. The skulls of Neanderthals, as well as Homo sapiens, have shown clear signs of having teeth that were picked with a tool. It is the oldest instrument for dental cleaning. Toothpicks are well-known in all cultures. Before the toothbrush was invented, one cleaned one’s teeth with hard and soft dental woods. Toothpicks made of bronze have been found as burial objects in prehistoric graves in Northern Italy and in the East Alps, as well as Mesopotamia.
Antique toothpicks were often made of precious metals. The pick was sometimes solid gold, some with celluloid handles or a handle made of stone. Many were beautifully engraved. There are delicate, artistic examples made of silver in antiquity, as well as from mastic wood with the Romans. In the 17th century toothpicks were luxury objects similar to jewellery items. They were formed from precious metal and set with expensive stones. Frequently they were artistically stylized and enameled. These antique toothpicks are sought by collectors, particularly the more ornate varieties.
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Early wooden toothpicks were found objects, each fashioned ad hoc from a broken twig or stalk with a pointed end. Often, the other end of the twig was chewed until its fibers separated to form a primitive toothbrush called a chew-stick. Some cultures, like the Japanese, developed rigid rules about how such sticks were held and used. In medieval Portugal, a cottage industry developed to produce straightforward handmade toothpicks, and these splints of orangewood gained a reputation for being the best in the world. Toothpicks made in the Portuguese tradition were common in Brazil in the mid-19th century when Charles Forster, an American working in the import-export trade, found them being crafted and used by natives there. It was a time when the manufacture of just about everything was becoming mechanized in America, and Forster believed that toothpicks could be mass-produced in New England at a cost that would allow them even to be exported to Brazil and compete with the handmade kind. The first toothpick-manufacturing machine was patented in 1872, by Silas Noble and J. P. Cooley. Toothpicks were thereafter commonly available made of wood. A plastic version of this device is even a component of the Swiss Army knife.
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