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Some of you may have read the article titled An ongoing project which details the removal of an old wine rack and installation (or lack thereof) of a new corkscrew display to cover some shelving for wine glasses. If you haven't, it's a short read. Basically, one tiny nail shut down the whole project and little progress has been made since. I partially posted the article to motivate us to complete the project, but so far the nail is winning. However, some progress has been made, even though the nail still hinders the rest of the project. I completed the corkscrew display which will be mounted in place of the old wine rack. This marks the 26th display board in our collection. The bar that this will be displayed in has a dark green wallpaper with grape cluster accents so I created the board to match. Aside from the green suede backing, all of the corkscrews in this display feature grape clusters. 
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Some of my fellow collectors probably saw this beauty on ebay recently. Well, the secret's out! I was the lucky winner. This corkscrew needed a few repairs when it arrived. You could tell from the photos in the ebay listing that the larger end cap had fallen off at some point and been glued back upside down. How someone could make that mistake is beyond my comprehension, but fortunately after about 4 hours and a lot of acetone, cleaning, polishing and even silversmithing, I am very pleased with the results.    I was lucky enough to snag this great art deco corkscrew with a low Buy it Now on ebay. These sliding pocket corkscrew/bottle openers come with several different advertisements, but this Hotel Gowman version seems to be one of the less common examples.    I've always been a fan of perfume corkscrews. These corkscrews were often found alongside button hooks & nail files and were produced in several different materials and often customized. It's not uncommon to find examples engraved with a monogram or family crest. This recent acquisition features a crown atop the letter R. Could this corkscrew have belonged to royalty? Possibly. If anyone has any information on the previous owner of this piece then let me know.   I purchased this rare double lever corkscrew from a non-Ebay auction site. Marked DRGM; a German Patent marking. The only example I could find was an unmarked example in the book World Class Corkscrews with the description "Mme. Veuve Paraf's 1929 French patent with a different type of handle." This is indeed a rare piece which I will hold on to and use.     I picked up this impressive corkscrew on Ebay for a very good price which is surprising since I don't think I've seen one of these come up for auction in the 15 years that I've been collecting. But I won't argue with a deal, this just goes to show that there are still great deals out there. Measuring just over 12 inches, this item has multiple functions, the most obvious of which is a knife as well as a can opener, bottle opener and Clough wire corkscrew. The item is marked "FOUR-IN-ONE" and this particular example is advertising: "COMPLIMENTS OF THE PIONEER MEAT MARKET, CONRAD BAUER & SONS, QUALITY MEATS, COURTEOUS SERVICE, SOONER OR LATER YOU WILL BECOME A REGULAR CUSTOMER, 40 YEARS OF SERVICE 40, MONTGOMERY, MINNESOTA"   It's been a while since I've posted, but that doesn't mean that I haven't acquired any great corkscrews lately; quite the contrary. For those who don't know, my main profession is preparing tax returns so I'm extremely busy between February and April. But now that things are starting to slow down and I'll be working 6 days a week instead of 7, let me take this time to reward you, my loyal readers, with a treasure trove of blog posts and content to the website. Let me begin with a purchase I made back in 2017 which I christened on new years eve. This just goes to show how far behind I am on these posts. I purchased this corkscrew from a dealer in Europe that I've worked with before. As soon as I saw it, I knew that I had to have it. It has a very unusual sliding frame mechanism and I had never seen another example. I eventually found a single similar example in the book World Class Corkscrews. The rarity and uniqueness convinced me to spend the several thousand dollars to purchase it. I don't usually use many or any of the 1,500+ vintage corkscrews in our collection and normally consider them vintage art pieces, but considering that this one was all metal and mechanical I decided to purchase it solely to use to open bottles in the wine cellar during parties. I first used it on new years eve and have used it several times since. Hopefully this corkscrew will continue to open wine bottles for another 100 years or so.   |
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
February 2021
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