Antique Nutcracker

Antique Nutcracker

This is a really cool piece. I'm guessing it's late 1800s to early 1900s? This guess is based on others I've looked at. Opinions are welcome.

The nutcracker has scroll work on both sides of each handle. As well as on the faces of each side of the flats. The center pivot point allows the handles to invert. If you look at the pictures you can see that one way there's more space between the handles and the other, there's less space between the handles. I assume that's for different size nuts?

IN THE BEGINNING
Nutcrackers have been around for thousands of years. The earliest nutcrackers were probably strong teeth or hammers.

NO, REALLY..HOW LONG?
"Archeologists discovered the first evidence that man developed tools to crack nuts at the site of Gesher Benot Ya’aqov, close to the Dead Sea in Israel. There, they found seven varieties of nuts along with some 50 pitted stones reported to be 780,000 years old."

MADE IN THE USA
"Archaeologists have found similar tools in the United States, dating back 4,000 to 8,000 years, in Louisiana, Alabama, Arkansas, and Ohio."

BEFORE THE DESERT WAS IT DESERT?
"Archeologists have discovered nutting stones equally as old in what is now the Sahara Desert. (Nine thousand years ago, monsoon rains would soak the Sahara, supporting lush vegetation – including nuts. It wasn’t until much later that the climate changed, and the Sahara became a desert.)"

HEAVY METAL
"The oldest metal nutcracker known dates to the 3rd-4th century B.C.. The “Bronze Hands,” as it was dubbed, was discovered in 1930 in a grave near Taranto, Italy. It is currently exhibited at The National Archeological Museum of Taranto, in Taranto, Italy."