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Earlier this month ICCA members gathered for the Annual General Meeting which was located in London this year. I was unfortunately unable to attend this year, but it looks like everyone had a great time and acquired some new corkscrews. To my surprise, soon after I was told that I had won the Frank MacDonald award for the most outstanding Best Six. Pictures of the Best Six in question are below. Hopefully I'll be able to top this Best Six in the future. So far, it's looking like 2024 will be a pretty good one.  Best 6 - 2023
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A very interesting corkscrew turned up a few weeks ago at an auction house in the UK. A one of a kind Dutch silver double seal corkscrew. I don't recall ever seeing anything like it. But with any valuable corkscrew, its always a good idea to get a picture of the helix before bidding. I asked a week prior to the auction for a picture and got a response that they had added a picture to the catalog. A day before the auction, I ask again for a picture and they send me one showing that there is virtually nothing left of the helix, a very unfortunate revelation. With this in mind, I opted not to bid, but was somewhat surprised to see that it sold for so much. Hopefully, the buyer was aware of the condition. Nonetheless, it's still a very interesting corkscrew and would at least display well.   This is a big find, and I mean BIG. I was lucky enough to win this at auction for a staggering price. Let's just say that it was a low starting bid and I was the only bidder. Shown with an average can opener for scale. My guess is that the other potential bidders thought that this was a regular sized can opener, which are usually fairly worthless, or they were aware that it was a large art piece but thought that it was some cheap modern item. It is a Pop Art wall sculpture by Curtis Jere circa 1979 and even features the artist's signature and date. It's very heavy, well made, and in almost perfect condition. You can find several examples currently listed for sale ranging anywhere from $900-$3,500. I'm not sure what exactly this would sell for at auction or whether this would appeal more to art collectors or corkscrew collectors, but for now it will stay here in the collection, although I'm not quite sure where to put this thing.     I'm often contacted by people who have found my website who are interested in selling either one corkscrew or sometimes a whole collection, or who simply want some information about a corkscrew that they've acquired. I'm always happy to give my advice or make an offer. Earlier this year I was contacted by someone who had inherited an entire collection. It was a fairly large collection with several hundred pieces and several quality corkscrews. I would have offered to purchase the entire collection, but it was located in France and the shipping costs would have been cost prohibitive. After chatting with the seller for a while I highlighted about a dozen pieces that I was interested in and made a fair offer. I never heard back and figured that the seller had moved on. Eventually I received an email that they had decided to sell the collection with a French auction house. I bid on a few of the lots and ended up winning one lot. The lot contained three of the corkscrews that I was interested in. The first is a marked bronze Gagnepain figural corkscrew, next is an interesting whistle handled corkscrew, followed by a B. Lew patent prong puller corkscrew. I was interested in the whistle corkscrew mainly out of curiosity, so if you're interested, you may find it in the upcoming ICCA Auction.    Back in April we experienced a total solar eclipse, but that wasn't the only eclipse of 2024 because not long after I won this beautiful bar mounted Eclipse corkscrew at auction. These have long been one of my favorite bar mounted corkscrews. These large statement pieces are fairly rare and quite unique in their design and mechanism. Unfortunately, upon its arrival from the auction house, I tested it....and nothing. I have another one of these in the collection, so I know how these are suppose to work; you spin the handle in a continuous motion and the screw spins into the cork and retracts the cork and will then unscrew from the cork if you continue spinning. I opened up the corkscrew to investigate as well as referenced Compendium of Bar Corkscrews by Wayne Meadows and concluded that it was missing an important gear. My guess is that the gear broke at some point and was removed. I may get around to trying to get a new gear cast or possibly 3D printed some day, but until then, it's still a beautiful show piece. If any collector friends have any cost effective ways to get a new gear cast or printed then let me know.   I was lucky enough to win this rare bronze frame corkscrew depicting a Satyr with wings at auction. Initially I planned on reselling this piece, that was until it arrived and I saw how phenomenal the details of this piece are. So this one will become a permanent resident of the collection, at least until I acquire a duplicate.    Here are my recent Ebay acquisitions from the last month or so. First is a Champion bar mounted corkscrews; do I need another one? Not really, but at a $50 buy-it-now with free shipping who can resist? Next is a carved stag horn corkscrews depicting a dragon with an orb in it's mouth, followed by a carved boars tusk corkscrew depicting a horse head, and lastly a nice ivory tusk with a grape vine/leaf motif etched into the end.     A few weeks ago, we hosted a professional happy hour at our office which included tapas and plenty of wine, but also included a limited viewing of the corkscrew collection. At our office we have four framed corkscrew displays mounted on the walls as well as a couple extras that I brought in for the occasion. It didn't take long for the viewing to be turned into a fun game of guess the most valuable corkscrew. We asked roughly 40-50 people to guess the most valuable corkscrew out of the 14 below and not a single person guessed it. The most valuable (by a very high margin) is the one located in the center of the second picture with the single lever (top left of the first picture). The majority guessed the scrimshaw George Washington carved piece followed by the intricately carved dragon with Sterling silver tail followed by the skeptical few who thought it was the Weir's compound double lever. Almost every piece was guessed except for the most valuable which I thought was pretty interesting.   As I stated in my last blog post, the lot of corkscrews that I purchased was pretty large. There are some quality pieces, but also plenty of not so great and more modern pieces. The most interesting piece(s) can be found in the last picture. A turned wood handled corkscrews with brush and archimedean worm marked Farrow & Jackson on the shank (as well as another marked Farrow & Jackson T handle on the top right of the last picture). Most corkscrews collectors are most likely familiar with the Farrow & Jackson name, but I was surprised to find it on a basic T handle corkscrew since the name is most often associated with more mechanical type corkscrews. Anyway in addition to the unusual Farrow & Jackson pieces there are also several Syrocco pieces as well as plenty of decent corkscrews in the lot. Unfortunately there wasn't an ultra rare piece hiding in the rubble, but not a bad buy overall. More great corkscrews on the way!      I'm just finishing up a week long vacation in Denver. As usual, we visited all of the museums, ate at all of the best restaurants, and searched most of the antique malls for corkscrews. Also, per usual, we found no corkscrews worth purchasing. Fortunately, like one of those tv shows that involves the host going on a fishing trip, we had a backup in case we didn't catch anything. As pictured below; I purchased a large mixed lot of corkscrews from an auction house and it will be somewhat of a mystery as the majority of the corkscrews aren't pictured and/or visible. Anyway, I don't have high hopes that there will be some super rare corkscrew, but it will be fun to see what I got. These are waiting for me when I get back tomorrow and I also have some other nice corkscrews on the way to the collection. Stay tuned to see what I got.  |
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
August 2024
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