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This one will definitely be making my best 6 for 2023, and its already making a couple of waves through the corkscrew collecting community. The corkscrew: a beautiful English T pull with cork grips and brush....obviously I'm kidding. Although the English corkscrew with the cork grips is a nice addition, the real reason for the high hammer price was for the single lever corkscrew on the right. I have only been able to find one other example which was sold about 10 years ago for a little over $17k and now resides in the museum in Romania. This example looks pristine and will be a welcome addition to the collection. 
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One day I was contacted by a man in Canada who said that he dealt with estates and that he found an interesting corkscrew, and interesting it was. Nestled inside an antique red case was a beautiful Sterling silver figural corkscrew with a sheath and bladed helix with the handle in the form of some kind of big cat. The dealer was already chatting with other collectors and had a few offers, of which, I was willing to beat. It wasn't cheap, but I can't resist a custom piece with a case. One theory was that this piece was made for a doctor. The corkscrew would be used to open medicine bottles and the funnel would be used for measuring out medicines. If you have any more information on this corkscrew then send me a message, but this one is sure to make it to my best 6 for 2023.    I have a display of bar mounted corkscrews in my bedroom and one day I was staring at the corkscrews displayed on the shelves and one stuck out like a sore thumb; it was a Quick and Easy, which is a great corkscrew that I really love, but this example has seen better days as most of the chrome plating was long since gone. The next morning I looked at my watchlist on ebay and saw that there was a near perfect example of a "New Unique" corkscrew ending later that day. While it is a different corkscrew, they are pretty much the same design as you can see from the picture, however not exactly the same...I'll post a picture once I'm able to get the new one to stand up on a flat surface (it took some adjusting to get it to stand up on the hand-scraped wood flooring).  A couple new ebay buys. The first is a massive tusk handled corkscrew with Sterling endcap. The other is a nice Syroco dog head corkscrew; who can resist adding another one to their collection? I knew that the tusk corkscrew was massive because the ebay listing showed it next to a soda can, but its hard to picture quite how large this corkscrew is. See the 2nd picture next to some other corkscrews for comparison. It's very heavy as well, weighing in at just over a pound. If only it was rhino horn, but I suspect that it's a buffalo horn. If you think I'm wrong then let me know in the comments. Either way, they're both welcome additions to the collection.   I purchased this unusual Anri "drunk lamppost man" (as they are usually referred as) corkscrew because it had an unusual variation that I've never seen. The variation was a glass ashtray built into the figure (pictured in the center). I pulled the other drunk lamppost men for comparison. These often have slight variations, but this new piece was decidedly different. Note that I believe the third one from the left has been modified/painted. I was also surprised to find a label with a US company on it since these Anri pieces were made in Italy. The bodies and paint colors all seem pretty similar, but the base is clearly different and somewhat crudely carved out for the ash tray. The head is also slightly different from your standard drunk lamppost man since it has a fez. The other variation is that it has no corkscrew, just an irremovable lamp and a bottle opener, so this piece may eventually be leaving the collection, but I had to buy it based on how unique it seemed. If you have any information on this variation then leave me a message.      As the title implies, I'm a little behind on blog posts, so get ready for a wave of content. A few months back I got a really good buy-it-now purchase on ebay. In fact, I don't think I've won a great buy-it-now auction in several years, but there it was....just listed, a perfect condition Israeli Pal-Bell corkscrew located in the UK for a mere $55. For reference these are rare pieces that normally fetch a few hundred at auction. As soon as I made the purchase, I knew that one way or another it would eventually end up in the collection of my friend Robert as I knew that he was actively searching for one. I shot him a message and we eventually came up with a fair trade and will be making the exchange at the upcoming ICCA AGM. What did I get in the trade? A beautiful carved stag horn corkscrew with a deer carving. I'll post pictures as soon as I receive it....or a few months down the line. Stay tuned.   I have plenty of Champion corkscrews in the collection already, but for around $20, who can resist buying one more? I won this one on a non-eBay auction site. Unfortunately it was not packed well enough and arrived broken. I received a refund and got to keep the item, so it's not all bad news. If you own a Champion corkscrew then it's now a little bit rarer. If you're ever shipping a bar mounted corkscrew then be sure to pack it really well because they have a tendency to break during shipping.   I have some exciting new additions on the way to the collection, but in the meantime, here's some recent additions. First is a nicely carved bone handled corkscrew with brush, a Sterling silver Peruvian corkscrew, and a carved wood handled corkscrew with brush.  There was an auction house located in New York which had several lots of corkscrews up for auction. There were some interesting lots, but I held back on many of them because the shipping cost alone to get a lot of about 10 vintage Champion bar mounted corkscrews shipped to me would be pretty cost prohibitive. I was able to win the one lot that I was interested in. There were several nice bar mounted corkscrews, a Lund Lever, two interesting corkers, as well as some bycatch. The last picture shows the bycatch. I know that one is a vintage shotgun shell reloader, but I'm not sure what the other tool is for. Possibly a cherry pitter? If you think you know the answer, leave a comment.      |
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
September 2023
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