Patent ID: 7490879

Claim:
A pine cone collecting and holding tool comprising in combination: an elongate tubular body defining a medial channel having a central axis, having an upper end portion opening to said medial channel and a lower end portion opening to said medial channel and defining first fastening means in the lower end portion; and an entry structure having an annular peripheral rim defining an orifice geometrically similar to and larger than the lower end portion of the tubular body to fit over the lower portion of the tubular body, said peripheral rim: defining second fastening means to releasably interconnect with the first fastening means of the body for releasable positional maintenance of the peripheral rim onto the body, and at least two resiliently deformable triangular-like fingers having a wide end integral with the peripheral rim and a narrow end carried in substantially coplanar relationship about the inner surface of the annular peripheral rim of the entry structure, said at least two fingers extending radially inwardly from the annular peripheral rim spacedly distant from each other to define an orifice about and between inner ends of the at least two fingers, each having converging edges having upper and lower faces spanning across the converging edges in an arc about the central axis, each having a predetermined dimension at the wide end, the wide end of each finger being spaced from an adjacent finger by a distance at least as great as the predetermined dimension, each having sufficient resilient deformability to allow passage of pine cones therepast upon deformation of at least a portion of at least one of said fingers responsive to force exerted upon the at least one finger by a pine cone and each having sufficient retentent memory to return after removal of the deforming force to substantially the same configuration as existed prior to deformation.