What a Knight!

Wirtz, Virginia - In the July 24 issue we reported on a collector's lucky purchase of a Syroco Golden Knight at $40.00 through a "Buy it now" offering on July 17. This came on the heels of another selling for $2599.99. At the time of that report, another Knight had been listed on the ebay auction site and the bid was $685.00.

The auction closed on July 28 at a record breaking $3175.52.

In the meantime, another sale took place on July 24 with a "Buy it now" at $1850.00.

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Special Feature

My First Screw by John Compton

In the beginning was the word, and it was good ! I am sure that everyone has a relative who gives them strange presents at Christmas and so it was that in 1989 I was given a worn out copy of Corkscrews & Bottle Openers by Evan Perry, even though I knew nothing about corkscrews at that time. Its previous owner was possibly Canadian, since, a note on page 20 states "Any on this page (never seen in Canada)" indicating perhaps, that the book had been given to a friend who was coming to U. K. and suggesting what to look out for. Page 13 shows an eyebrow with crown cork opener and crude wire breaking blade - with note - "To £20 depending on condition". (If the offer is still open I would love to sell him one for £20).

I was always a keen collector, and after reading the book I remembered that in our tool box there was my late Grandmother's folding bow and a barrel shaped pocket corkscrew, a roundlet or "Beau Brummell", which had most of its tools bent and twisted, thanks to a youthful me!. Having found the corkscrews, I decided to collect an example of all the corkscrews shown in the book. This task took perhaps a year and by that time the bug had struck and I could not stop expanding my new collection.

It is strange but I thought that I was the only person collecting. One day in a general dealer's shop I came across a catalogue for Chris Barge and in due course, I contacted him. After a few purchases, I asked him if he knew of anyone else in my area who collected corkscrews. The answer was no but he told me about a meeting of collectors to be held at the Royal Festival Hall the following week. This very basic meeting turned into the inaugural meeting of the British Corkscrew collectors club now known as the ABCDE.

Thirteen years and 654 corkscrews later I am still searching for Eldorado and its all due to that folding bow with a blunt point and Evan Perry's little brown book

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