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ICCA Auctions sale #28 ended a few weeks ago and while I didn't have anything listed this time around, I did manage to win a couple of lots.  First is a beautiful art deco version of a Champion bar mounted corkscrew which I plan to use in my home instead of the modern version that I'm currently using. Next are 3 unusual American multitools. The last and rarest corkscrew is a Weir's double lever patent. The odd thing is that I never actually placed a bid on this item, but ended up winning through some kind of glitch. In fact, I was driving at the time that the bid was placed. I reported the issue, but then decided to go ahead and keep it since it was such a great price. I've also got some new additions from everyone's favorite auction site. Both are fairly unusual. The first looks to be a homemade single lever corkscrew. The second is a wood handled corkscrew in the shape of a barrel with a twisted shank.  
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Installation of the new wine racks began yesterday and should be completed today. There were a few hiccups and modifications needed, but it should look nice once its completed.     I won this fairly inexpensive stag horn corkscrew on ebay, but as you can see, it could use a little polishing. In addition, one of the 2 silver pins that keeps the end cap attached was missing, so it was easy to remove the end cap.    I lightly cleaned the stag horn with a damp towel, polished the silver end cap, reattached the end cap with a new silver pin, and finally polished everything with Renaissance wax.   Some new arrivals that came in this week. A Carved boars tusk corkscrew with silver end cap and a stag handled Henshall type with serrated button.    In other news, my wine racks have now been stained/sealed and are ready for install. Hopefully that will happen sometime this week.  I've been buying and selling modern bar mount corkscrews for several years now. Many of the ones that I buy come with stands and well, they've piled up. So I decided to take them to the metal recycling place to see how much they were worth. I ended up taking these 25 stands which weighed 143 pounds for a grand total of...........$3.53.  It's been a busy few weeks, but I do have some new corkscrews to show for it. A syroco monk corkscrew, German mechanical corkscrew with stag handle and silver end caps, a midsize French corkscrew with bronze handle depicting a hunting scene, Thomas Strait patent 1883 self pulling corkscrew, a Codd corkscrew, William Bennit's 1883 U.S. patent self puller corkscrew with fixed bell, and a Henshall type direct pull corkscrew with serrated button.    For months, my wine cellar has just been a cooled closet with a couple of bottles sitting on the floor, but now I've finally received the custom racks from my carpenter. In the next few days I will be getting the racks stained, then my carpenter will be able to install them.    In other cellar news, my parent's first wine cellar has been out of commission for a few weeks now. It has had minor leaks and condensation for years, but it had gotten much worse lately and even had condensation dripping out of the electric socket. This cellar was never insulated as well as the other two wine cellars since we built it before we knew about closed cell foam. To remedy the situation, our plan is to rip out the drywall in the garage which is on the other side of the cellar and spray it with closed cell foam. We have also purchased a custom iron door which should arrive in a few months. Hopefully more updates coming soon.  Corkscrew collectors acquire new pieces through a number of different channels; Ebay, live auctions, antique stores, etc. One of the consequences of collecting is that occasionally you have to purchase a lot which includes items other than that one rare corkscrew. Because of this, it's not uncommon for the seasoned collector to start to accumulate some unintended purchases. I recently acquired a corkscrew in a lot that had some of the most unusual bycatch that I've acquired to date.  These are 3 antique toilet paper holders as well as some sort of wall mounted clip which may or may not be a related item. I'm not sure if there are people who collect these, but either way, these will eventually make their way out of my house.    If you have been reading then you know that I've been searching for corkscrews on my week long vacation to Paso Robles, CA. As of my last post, all that I had bought were 2 lots of bottle openers which I had decided to wait until I returned home to open since they were wrapped like a couple kilos of cocaine being smuggled from Colombia. Anyway, it has been a grueling and discouraging search, but I'm finally home and ready to share the results. We visited around 25 antique stores/malls in total during the trip. While we did find a good number of corkscrews, few were worth buying and even fewer were reasonable priced. Below you will find some of the overpriced corkscrews that we found in the antique stores as well as the massive bucket of bottle openers that I dug through to no avail.     Finally some decent corkscrews, but unfortunately still overpriced.  And then I spot what at first glance looks to be a Syroco scotty dog corkscrew; an excellent find if it's priced reasonably. My excitement quickly subsides as I realise that this corkscrew is not a Syroco, but I'm still intrigued and since the label wasn't visible, we asked to have the case opened. The corkscrew, marked on the underbelly "ITALY", was made of an unknown material; not quite plastic, but not quite wood and was fairly light. As I try to decipher the writing on the tag, I ask the employee if the number written is the price or the dealer number. She explains that the number is the price ($195) and I quickly toss it back as if it was a lobster which hasn't yet reached its maturity.  The employee proceeds to explain that there is a discount in this booth. 50%, quite a large discount. She starts to read the flyer and stops dead in her tracks and looks back with an awkward sigh.  We persist and find an antique mall in a very rural part of California. Finally, we make a purchase! Its an American direct pull corkscrew marked H & B MFG CO with brush.   And don't forget the 2 bottle opener lots. There were a total of 5 corkscrews.  I also had 2 corkscrews waiting for me at home that were purchased from online sources. On the left is a Williamson stag handled corkscrew. The one on the right appears to be made from a walrus tusk and is very heavy.   We're officially half way through our trip to Paso Robles, CA. So far we've seen nearly all of the local museums as well as the antique stores. There's been no shortage of good food and wine, but per usual, we've found little to nothing in the way of corkscrews in the antique stores/malls.  So far, we've been to around 15 antique stores. Nearly everything that we've found has either not been worth buying or too overpriced. We visited one store which I would rank as the 3rd worst antique store that I've ever seen. It was more of a hoarder's junk pile than an antique store, but when asked, the owner was able to find a few common corkscrews with bent helixes. He said he had some more corkscrews, but it would take him 2 days to dig through a room to find them. I gave him my card and told him to email me if he ever found them. The store owner then told us that he has never used a computer in his life and proceeded to show us his flip phone that was almost old enough to be in an antique store.    But the search continued and I finally did manage to buy something. I bought 2 mystery lots of bottle openers pictured below for a total of $15. I can see that one of the bags contains 2 can opener corkscrews, but for the most part, the rest of the contents are somewhat of a mystery. I'll wait until I return home to unpack them.  Today we finally found some corkscrews worth purchasing, but unfortunately they weren't for sale as they were a part of the Paso Robles Historical Society Museum. I was happy to see that they had such an accurate description of the corkscrews.  We have a few days left and we're sure to visit some more antique stores, so there's still hope although it's waning quickly.  |
James ZalaznikI'm constantly adding new corkscrews to my collection. Any new finds as well as articles which may be of interest to corkscrew collectors will be posted here. Archives
November 2019
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