Publius & Co.

Sidetracked

I had this idea for a post--in a nutshell, I have this really good corkscrew and I wanted to convince the blogosphere to mortgage their house even if you are just renting it, sell your kid to the circus, put your liver up for auction on eBay--whatever you need to do to raise the funds for one of these corkscrews.

But while researching the origins of this corkscrew, the post took a left turn at Albequerque instead of passing straight thru, and I came pretty close to getting the gf mad at me.

You see, the gf and I like wine. We're not wine snobs by any stretch of the imagination, but we know a good glass of wine when we taste it. We even went to the Maryland Wine Festival and came home with over $100 worth of wine (as opposed to some wino who went to the Virginia Beach Winefest on the same day and got so drunk he ended up doing something embarassing with his boss), and I was able to drive home, no problem.

In order to enjoy a wine, you need to get at it, and in order to get at it you need a corkscrew. I've used all kinds of corkscrews, and most of 'em don't offer a really elegant way to get that furschlugginer cork out of the bottle. I've spilled more than a little bit of wine with an old-fashioned direct pull corkscrew (the kind with a t-handle where you need brute strength to get the damn thing out). I don't like the double-lever corkscrew--I pinched the web of my hand in one once and it hurt like a sonovabitch, plus I bled all over the bottle.

I've used waiter's keys (single-lever corkscrew) in the past, but the last time I used one the bottle shattered where the short part of the lever contacted the bottle and I poured the rest of that bottle of wine down the drain.

I've used a double-pronged corkscrew with great success, until different vineyards started using plastic corks. I stopped after I pushed my second plastic cork into the bottle. Also, those still require a fair amount of brute strength to use, and therefore aren't that elegant.

A few years ago, my gf's paternal grandmother died. While cleaning out her house, the gf's parents found an old corkscrew--Fabrique en France--that I had never seen before. I asked if I could have it, and her mother was kind enough to give it to me. Here's the entire kit:

It's a multi-lever corkscrew, and it's the best one I've used in my life. You screw the worm into the cork, hook two fingers under the handle and pull up, it stretches like a shelf grabber, and the cork comes right out--here's what it looks like opened:

I'm not an engineer, so I'm not sure exactly how many levers that is. But it's more than two, and I'm not exagerrating when I say getting the cork out is as close to effortless as I've ever experienced.

I started doing some research on it and that was when all hell broke loose. I wanted to find out when they were made, if they were still being made, and so on. So the short answer is: The original French patent was granted to Marie Jules Leon Bart on March 29, 1920, and a minor improvement (integrated cap lifters) resulted in another patent to M.J.L. Bart on August 27, 1928. Mine is of the second variety; from the date code stamped on the handle disk, I've determined it was manufactured in 1958.

Date code on the left; copyright stamps on the right.

I was more than a little amazed at how quickly I found out more info than I thought I would about this corkscrew. Most of the information comes from Don Bull's fascinating Virtual Corkscrew Museum, and this page on the Zig-Zag in particular. I should not have been surprised there was such a well-organized page on corkscrews out there, since I was well aware people will collect anything, no matter how mundane (such as sugar packets or moist towelettes).

Why wouldn't someone collect corkscrews--especially since one old corkscrew sold on eBay for $13,550 (US) back in April 2000?

The discovery of such a well-organized collecting organization for an object that has been in use, in one form or another, for centuries, that still hasn't changed too much from it's original design (no more than an automobile engine has, the Wankel rotary engine not withstanding), and that may well be in damn near every home in the country was what made this post head in a different direction than was originally intended.

You see, I like to collect things, but I don't really specialize in any one thing. I've got a very small collection of Depression Glass, mostly Anchor-Hocking Block Optic, in green. I've got some pieces in different patterns; my favorites are my Candlewick pieces, and the story of how I got 'em. Maybe I'll tell you the story some day.

I've also got a nice-sized comic book collection (modern-age stuff; a little bit of silver age "Our Army At War" (Sgt. Rock)) and I also look thru eBay every now and then for magazines from the year and month of my birth.

Then there's my Joe Don Baker collection of stuff. Posters, videos, publicity shots and press kits from his movies. . .I pull another publicity shot out of an envelope and the gf just sighs and rolls her eyes.

So why not collect old corkscrews, especially since eBay makes it so easy to start? Hmmm...

Don't worry sweetie...I *know* we don't have room for anything else. But I admit it--I might buy a modern-made Zig-Zag corkscrew (yep, they're still being manufactured) and retire this 45 year-old one. It's earned its rest.

Posted by Victor at Diciembre 10, 2003 02:48 AM