Best find of the year

A couple of weeks ago, I was fortunate to win an extremely rare American patent corkscrew. Purchased from a somewhat obscure auction site and hidden among a group of antique junk, however with several clear pictures of the corkscrew, I thought surely I wouldn't be the only corkscrew collector bidding. But, as luck would have it, I was the only corkscrew collector bidder with the final price totaling around $25. So what was this rare American corkscrew? It's the wall mounted Double Duty pictured below with only a handful of examples know to exist within our collector circles.

This type of corkscrew isn't really my thing, so I was planning on selling it in the next ICCA auction. Only one of these has been sold on ICCA auctions and it sold for a whopping $1,550. After winning the auction, I talked to some collector friends about the find; one of which was Josef L'Africain the seller of the other example. Josef being the avid American patent collector was, of course, interested in it. He sent me several pictures of corkscrews that he had to trade for it, but nothing exciting, until we settled on the two pictured below.

The first is a beautiful carved boars tusk depicting a monkey stealing a bottle and a glass of wine. The second is a mechanical four pillar corkscrew with an unusual custom engraved ivory handle.

Oh, and there's more...these weren't the only corkscrews that I liked out of the potential trades, so I asked about a couple of the others and we quickly made a deal.

First is a copy of the new Syroco corkscrew book. I recommend buying a copy once more are available. Second is a beautiful carved ivory Walker corkscrew with silver inlay. Next is an ivory mustache shaped corkscrew. Oddly, this one features an inscription in the bone. The inscription is of a number (7466); perhaps the silver content. As well as the owner's initials above the numbers which are hardly visible due to a hairline crack going through them. Last is a four pillar mechanical corkscrew marked PAGET on the smaller handle.

Stay tuned. More unique corkscrews en route.