Credited to Switzerland. The vegetable peeler itself predates the Rex: a peeler was registered in Vienna in 1891 and the German Famos peeler was patented in 1936. The Swiss claim is to the crosswise swivel-blade design of 1947, which became the widely copied form.
How it began
Alfred Neweczerzal was born in Davos in 1899 to Czech immigrant parents and moved to Zurich at thirteen. He became a market vendor of household items, and in 1931 he bought a punching machine and set up a small workshop in a house in the Wiedikon district of Zurich. He began producing his vegetable peeler in the mid-1940s and patented it in 1947 under the name Rex, Latin for king. It was the first peeler with a movable blade mounted crosswise to the handle.
Before it existed
The peeler as such was not a Swiss invention. A peeler under the German name Sparschäler was registered in Vienna by Joseph Denk in December 1891, and such tools were advertised in Swiss newspapers from 1905. In 1936 the German Albert Deimel patented the Famos peeler, which had a movable blade mounted lengthwise, in line with the handle.
How it works
The blade is mounted crosswise at the end of the handle and is movable, where the earlier Famos had its blade in line with the handle. Users describe the tool as light, comfortable in the hand and quick to peel with. Its design has stayed virtually unchanged since 1947. Because the form has been widely copied, it is often known simply as the Y peeler.
How it spread
Neweczerzal's company, Zena, later based in Affoltern am Albis near Zurich, has made tens of millions of the peelers over more than 70 years, and about 60 percent are exported to more than 20 countries. Around 2020 it had about a dozen employees and still made 2 million units a year.
Where it stands today
The family business was sold in about 2020 to Victorinox, the maker of the Swiss Army knife, so production stayed in Swiss hands. The Rex is treated as a classic of Swiss design. It is held in design museum collections, including the Museum of Modern Art in New York and the Design Museum in Zurich, and Swiss Post issued a stamp showing it in 2004.
