The purpose of the tool is to cut the wire holding the Champagne cork, there are a number of variations, small and large, sometimes combined with other fonctions, like a cigar cutter, a knife or a corkscrew, please see the pictures below for illustration. Some are available on my site or my etsy shop and some are from my sold archives.

A few French Champagne nippers

A couple of English nippers

A nice boxed English nipper with corkscrew.

A German patented one with corkscrew.

A fairly rare French figural one.

An English Watt’s patent knife in silver.

An English Priestman & Thornhill patent knife in silver.