Estate Sale

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.