Rotating clothes tree

A disassembleable clothes or other garment rack or stand having a base, a supporting axle rod extending upwardly from the base and a plurality of spool-like elements separated from each other, and disposed for rotation about the rod at different height levels, and each said element having angularly, upwardly extending peg-type hangers insertable into it, with each of said elements and its hangers being greater in size and extent than the element and its hangers at the level immediately below. The stand may be converted into a decorative simulated tree by providing an annular support member having a plurality of spaced-apart coaxial rings disposed on the top of the base arm branches hung from the peg hangers and resting upon the coaxial rings.

FIELD OF THE INVENTION 
This invention relates to clothes trees such as would be placed in homes 
and offices, and particularly to one which may be converted to serve as an 
artificial Christmas tree. 
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 
Various types of hat and coat racks, clothes stands, and clothes trees have 
been devised since at least the early days of colonies. Subsequent to the 
American Civil War, some attention was given to providing cloak or clothes 
stands which would rotate. Examples of such stands may be seen as follows 
in the early patents to: 
______________________________________ 
INVENTOR PATENT NO. 
______________________________________ 
J. R. Palmenbury 
48,989 
S. A. Parker 381,414 
F. Wolf 478,386 
E. Leger 649,734 
F. Wolf 922,991 
M. Kozlowski 1,258,756 
Leon M. Levinthal 
3,788,489 
______________________________________ 
In addition, revolving devices have been provided to support neckties (No. 
1,466,564); displays (No. 3,424,313); saddles (No. 3,315,819); and powder 
dispensers (No. 4,582,225). 
Further, in the course of the prosecution of the application Ser. No. 
07/048,324 of which the present is a continuation in part, the following 
additional patents have been cited by the Examiner: 
______________________________________ 
INVENTOR PATENT NO. 
______________________________________ 
Lavaggi 346,293 
Ziegler 67,680 
Warren 127,028 
Neagle 3,310,180 
Engel 3,547,275 
Schramm (West Germany) 
2,019,456 
Cillario 4,453,640 
______________________________________ 
For one reason or another, revolving clothes or coat racks, are seldom, if 
ever, seen in use today. Conceivably, this could be because devices made 
of elaborate ironworks, such as are illustrated and described in the 
patents to Palmenbury (No. 48,989), Parker (No. 381,414), Leger (No. 
649,734), and Wolf (No. 922,991), would appear to be both expensive to 
fabricate, cumbersome to carry and properly locate, and not aesthetically 
appealing. As a consequence, most clothes trees or clothes racks found 
today comprise simple vertical wooden members supported by a plurality of 
legs or some other base, and a plurality of hooking devices radiating from 
the upper end of and fastened to the member by screws or bolts. Usually 
these clothes trees or stands are placed against a wall or in a corner in 
such a manner that coats or other garments to be hung therefrom, can only 
be hooked onto one or two sides, and not on the hooks extending toward the 
wall or the walls against which the stand is placed. It is desirable 
therefore, to provide for rotation of the hooking elements, as was 
apparently appreciated more than one hundred years ago. 
In addition, clothes trees ordinarily have but a single function, namely, 
to receive and hold one or more coats, hats, scarves, and other garments. 
They seldom, if ever, serve any other purpose, and particularly, any 
decorative function. 
It is also, however, most important that any revolving clothes tree or 
stand, whatever other function it may perform, be both inexpensive to 
fabricate and assemble, light in weight so that it can be easily moved 
about in a room or other location, occupy a minimum amount of space, and 
be pleasing in appearance. It is also desirable from a marketing 
standpoint for a clothes tree or rack to be packaged compactly in a 
disassembled state, but easily and securely assembled in whatever place it 
is to be placed for use. 
The prior art falls short of achieving all of these objectives. 
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION 
According to the present invention, a vertical base member is provided and 
supported at its lower end by, preferably, four downwardly and outwardly 
extending legs secured to such base member. The base member is orificed 
downwardly from its upper end for a predetermined distance to support a 
vertically extending cylindrical rod inserted in the orifice. Slipped onto 
this rod, which serves as an axle, are a plurality of spool-like element 
each having a center portion which may be cylindrical or multi-faceted, 
and being centrally orificed to allow the axle-rod to be passed through 
its core for rotatable support by and about the axle rod. Desirably 
spacers should be interposed between each of the spool-like elements. 
These spacers may be either attached to an adjacent spool-like element, or 
entirely separated therefrom so as to be independently rotatable from the 
spool-like elements. The top of the rod may be capped with a knoblike 
member having an orifice extending upwardly from its lower end to receive 
the upper end of the rod. 
Each of the spool-like elements which are preferably fabricated of wood, 
may be drilled downwardly at an angle from its side in several locations 
angularly spaced from each other, and provided with threading into which 
may be screwed wooden peglike hanger members. The latter will serve as 
upwardly directed projections adapted to receive either a hanger carrying 
a garment, or the garment itself directly. Each spool-like element and its 
peg-like members may be greater in size and extent than the spool-like 
element and its peg-like members next below it. Thereby, garments hung on 
he upper peg-like members will not tend to fall on top of garments hung on 
the lower members, and the former garments may be rotated about the 
vertical axis of the tree or rack without also necessarily pulling around 
the garments hung on the lower hanger elements. 
It may be thus seen that the present invention provides an exceedingly 
simple clothes or garment tree or stand, having a plurality of 
independently rotatable sets of peg hangers. The entire tree or stand may 
be readily disassembled into, or fabricated as, its several parts. In the 
latter case, the parts may be conveniently packaged in a relatively small 
box for assembly by its purchaser. When assembled, the tree or stand will 
be found to be quite light, so that it may be readily moved into any 
convenient location. Its several spool-like elements from which the 
hooking peg members project upwardly, may be rotated into any desired 
angular disposition. Moreover, because of its extremely simple 
construction, it is esthetically pleasing even when it is set up by itself 
and is not carrying any garments. 
The clothes tree or stand of the present invention, therefore, obviates 
many of the features of prior art devices which apparently caused them to 
be rejected by the public despite the desirability of having hanger 
rotating capabilities. 
It is also a feature of the present invention that the clothes tree may 
readily be converted to use as a simulated decorative Christmas tree. This 
may be accomplished by providing an annular support member having a 
central ring which may be seated on the top of the vertical base member 
before the axle rod is inserted down into the orifice and the spool-like 
elements are slipped down over the rod. When so assembled, the annular 
support member will be held in place co-axially with the rod and 
spool-like members. 
Desirably, the annular support member will comprise a series of supporting 
co-axial rings secured in fixed relationship to each other by a plurality 
of arms radiating from the central ring. The radius of each of the 
supporting rings is preferrably determined to provide support for a 
hanging straight line decorative element, the upper end of which is hooked 
on or attached to an end of a peg hanger, in such a manner that each such 
decorative element will be disposed in an imaginary co-axial cone. Thus, 
those decorative elements hooked on, or attached to the uppermost peg 
hangers will be disposed in a cone having the greatest base diameter; 
those hooked on or attached to the second tier of peg hangers, in a cone 
having a smaller base diameter; and those, hooked on or attached to the 
lowermost tier of peg hangers, in a cone having the smallest base 
diameter. The decorative elements may comprise a rigid wire or other 
member, having at regular spaced intervals a series of balls of fluffy 
material or needles, with the result that, when all such elements are 
hooked onto the proper peg-like elements and laid on their respective 
support rings, the thus covered clothes tree assumes the shape of a 
conifer, and as such, looks like a Christmas tree. 
The assembly may be further decorated by providing a lamp mounting at the 
top of the rod, which, when made as a hollow tube, may serve to carry an 
electric cord up through the base member when it also is made hollow. 
The device of the present invention, thus, not only may serve as a clothes 
tree, but may also be readily converted to an attractive simulated 
Christmas tree.

DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENT 
Referring to the drawings, a cylindrical base member 10 is supported by a 
plurality of legs 12 in an upright position. Desirably, the base member 10 
may be fabricated of wood and drilled where each of the upper or head 
portions 20 of the legs 12 would attach at 14 to the member 10. For secure 
support, preferably at least three drill holes 16 are provided to receive 
screws 18 which pass through the head portion 20 of each leg 12. 
The upper end 22 of the member 10 is coaxially orificed at 24 for at least 
a portion of the length of the member 10 to receive an axle rod 26 for 
support in a vertical orientation. After the axle rod 26 has been dropped 
into the orifice 24, a plurality of spool-like elments 28a, 28b, and 28c 
may be slipped onto the rod 26. However, desirably, spacers 30 and 32 
should be interposed between adjacent spool-like elements 28a and 28b, and 
28b and 28c. The spacers 30 and 32 may be of any esthetic configuration 
and may either be entirely separate from either of the spool like elements 
28a, 28b, or 28c, between which they are interposed, or, if desired, may 
be attached to one of the adjacent elements 28a, 28b, or 28c or formed 
integrally therewith. The dimension of the axle rod 26 in relation to the 
combined axial dimensions of the spool-like elements 28a, 28b, or 28c, and 
the spacers 30 and 32, may be such as to leave a small segment 34 at the 
top of the rod 26 onto which an orificed cap 36 may be placed to provide a 
finished look for the assembled clothes tree or stand. 
Each of the spool-like elements 28a, 28b, 28c is preferably square or 
octagonal in cross-section as shown in FIG. 3, thereby to provide a 
plurality of symetrically disposed vertical facet walls about the 
element's axis, although the elements could each be circular in, or of 
other preferably symmetrical cross-section, without departing from the 
scope of the present invention. However the side walls of the elements 
28a, 28b, and 28c are faceted, each is desirably threadedly drilled at 38 
at an upwardly extending angle to receive matingly threaded peg members 40 
which serve as coat hooks or hanger hooks. Thus, as shown in FIG. 4, a peg 
40 is threaded into each of the four sides 29 of the spool-like elements 
28a, 28b, and 28c to extend outwardly and at 90 degree spacing from 
adjacent pegs 40. 
From the construction thus described and illustrated, it may be readily 
appreciated that, when assembled, each of the elements 28 may be rotated 
about the rod 26, thus to enable a garment to be disposed about the rod 
axis at any point about the assembly. In this connection, it should be 
noted that it is also a feature of the present invention to provide 
increasing size and extent of the spool-like elements 28a, 28b, and 28c, 
and their respective peg members 40, with the rise in the levels of their 
respective dispositions on the rod 26. Thus, it will be noted that element 
28b and its members 40b are respectively larger than element 28a and its 
members 40a; and 28c and its members 40c are, in turn, respectively larger 
than 28b and its members 40b. 
As a consequence of this size difference, it will be appreciated that 
clothes hung on the upper pegs 40c will not tend to pile up on the clothes 
hung on the second tier of pegs 40b; nor will those hung on tier 40b tend 
to pile up on the clothes hung on the pegs 40a. This arrangement results 
in a much neater looking coat or garment rack when numerous garments may 
be placed upon it, as in a restaurant or other public place. In addition, 
the clothes hung on each spool-like element 28b, 28c and its respective 
peg members 40b, 40c may be rotated without necessarily causing clothes 
hanging on the lower peg members 40a, 40b also to be rotated. 
By virtue of the construction of the clothes rack of the present invention, 
it will also be readily appreciated that the whole device may be packed in 
a box no longer than the length of the axial rod 26. The height and width 
of the box may also be kept quite small since the various parts may be 
separately fabricated and assembled for packing, and include only the base 
member 10, the legs 12, the spool-like members 28a, 28b, and 28c with 
their respective detached peg elements 40a, 40b and 40c, the spacers 30 
and 32, and the cap 36. Because of such convenience in packing and easy 
assembly to produce a simple aesthetically appearing clothes or garment 
rack or tree, the assembly of the present invention will have great 
marketability and utility, and will be readily accepted by the public 
which appears long ago to have rejected rotating clothes racks described 
and illustrated in the prior art patents, such as have been hereinabove 
referred to in this specification. 
The present invention also lends itself to adaption as a decorative 
Christmas tree as shown in FIG. 5. This may be simply accomplished by 
providing an annular support member 44 having a central ring 46 which may 
be mounted on the upper end 22 of the base member 10, and a plurality of 
rigid decorative branches 47. 
The arrangement of the support members 44 is best shown in FIG. 5. Coaxial 
with the central ring 44 are three annular support elements 48, 50 and 52, 
all of which are held in spaced relationship by radii 54, 56, 58 and 60, 
each in a 90 degree relationship with its adjacent radii. The branches 47 
are each hooked at their upper extremities onto one of the peg-like 
members 40a, 40b, 40c, and are laid down on one of the annular support 
elements 48, 50 and 52 in a particular pattern, so that when all branches 
47 are properly disposed, the result is the appearance of a simulated 
Christmas tree as shown in FIG. 5. 
To attain this result, the diameter of the outside annular support element 
52 must be such, as to result in the branches 47a, which are hooked onto 
the peg-like members 40c and rested on the element 52, lying in an 
imaginary conical surface centered about the axis of the base member 10. 
Further, desirably each of the respective diameters of elements 50 and 48 
should be similarly calculated with reference to the branches 47b and 47c 
which will be hooked onto the peg-like elements 40b and 40a respectively, 
thereby to dispose the branches 47b and 47c also in co-axial imaginary 
cones about the base member 10. 
The clothes tree of the present invention may be further decoratively 
enhanced by providing a lamp 62 at the top 64 of the structure. For this 
purpose, a lamp holder 66 may be substituted for the cap 36 shown in the 
FIG. 1 embodiment, and the axle rod 26' is hollowed to enable an 
electrical cord 68 to be passed down through a passage 70 extending down 
from the bottom of the orifice 24, which supports the hollow rod 26', to 
extend out and below the base to where the cord 68 may be connected to an 
electrical outlet not shown. 
It will be appreciated, then, that not only may the present invention serve 
as a convenient clothes tree, but it may at appropriate times readily be 
converted to a decorative tree not intended to function as a clothes 
repository.