Getting the Scoop on Vintage Ice Cream Servers

July 19 is National Ice Cream Day. As that single scoop of your favorite flavor ice cream drips out of a waffle cone and drizzles down your hand, you are slurping up a part of history. No less than Alexander the Great (B.C. 356-323) is said to have enjoyed snow and ice flavored with honey and nectar.

During the Roman Empire, Nero Claudius Caesar (A.D. 54-86) sent runners into the mountains for snow, which he flavored with fruits and juices. The first official account of ice cream in the New World comes from a letter written in 1744 by a guest of Maryland Governor William Bladen. In 1851, Jacob Fussell of Baltimore established the first large-scale commercial ice cream plant. Alfred L. Cralle, a young inventor in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, recognized a need for an easy way to dispense ice cream. He applied for a patent for his invention called an “Ice Cream Mold and Disher” on Feb. 2, 1897. His invention became known as the ice cream scoop. (Its invention coincided with the 1896 invention of the ice cream cone by Italo Marchiony, a New York City pushcart vendor. There are also claims the cone was invented in 1904 at the St. Louis World’s Fair when a vendor ran out of paper dishes and used his waffle maker to create a cone.)

The invention of the scoop was notable because it prevented ice cream from sticking when scooped. Cralle’s invention also was inexpensive and durable and allowed vendors to dispense ice cream with one hand while holding a cone in another. Prior to the ice cream scoop, soda fountain employees had to use two spoons or ladles to scoop the ice cream and then transfer it from the spoon to the dish. Cralle’s design, which is still used today, was made in various sizes and shapes such as mounds, cones and cylinders. 

Here are 5 cool ice cream scoops along with their prices:

Ice cream scoop, Clipper No. 5, F.S. Co., Troy, N.Y., 1910s, 10 1/2 in., $120.
Photo: Morphy Auctions

Ice cream sandwich scoop, 1920s, 9 in., $300.
Photo: Morphy Auctions

Ice cream scoop, Mosteller, size 10, nickel-plated with wooden handle, bowl revolves, 11 in., $384.
Photo credit: Richard Opfer Auctioneers

Fairy Vacuum Disher ice cream scoop, 1930s, stamped “Fairbanks Sales Corp., East Alton, Ill.” and “Fairy Vacuum Disher.” Wooden handle pushes a plunger consisting of a twisted shaft that turns a gear attached to the blade inside the bowl that releases the ice cream,  10 1/2 in., $863.
Photo credit: Blackwell Auctions

Ice cream scoop with heart-shaped bowl, Manos Novelty Co., Ohio, Pat. Nov. 1925. Nickel-plated brass, wooden handle, $4,400.
Photo credit: Rich Penn Auctions