Self opening umbrella

Claim 1

In a self-opening umbrella having a stick and a main slide and an auxilary slide to actuate a frame structure comprising cover-supporting ribs hinged to a cap at the upper end of the stick and struts hingedly connected to each other, said struts having ends respectively hinged to said main and auxilary slides, a compression spring disposed about said stick and compressed on said stick between the slides for automatically urging said slides apart and opening the frame structure, said frame structure being closable by a grip sleeve pulling said slides together toward a lower end of said stick, a handle on the lower end of said stick, said grip sleeve and said handle including cooperating latch means for holding the umbrella frame structure in a closed condition, the improvement in which said grip sleeve comprises a tubular member freely rotatable on said stick and extending through said slides, said grip sleeve having an upper carrier abutingly engagble on the upper end of said auxilary slide, said compression spring being coiled about an intermediate portion of said tubular member between said slides, said grip sleeve having means limiting downward movement of said main slide therebelow, said auxilary and main slides having relative movement toward each other on said tubular member whereby manual closing of the frame structure is achieved by the freely rotatable grip sleeve moving on said stick through said main slide while pulling downwardly on said auxilary slide at the upper end of the grip sleeve while compressing said compression spring between said auxilary and main slides without torsional forces of said compression spring being imposed on said gripping sleeve.