Corkscrew prices go round the bend

Do you have an old oddly-shaped corkscrew in your kitchen or drinks cabinet? If so, you may be interested to hear that last year a silver pocket corkscrew fetched £18,400 sterling at Christie's in London.

Other high prices for the humble corkscrew include £8,625 paid last year for a rare American 1862 Russell patent; £2,760 for a 1793 tinder-box corkscrew sold in 1996; and £3,960 for an 1839 Shrapnel patent sold in 1994.

Mr Dennis Cox, a specialist in corkscrews at Christie's, says a valuable corkscrew may "look like the everyday object in the kitchen drawer. You may take no notice of it because the corkscrew is a domestic item not generally associated with high values or works of art".

Corkscrews by Irish makers can be valuable. Christie's sold one by Richard Singleton, a Dublin cutler or maker of knives in the late 18th century, for £5,600. It now adorns the dust-jacket of Bertrand Giulian's Corkscrews of the 18th Century, one of many books on the subject.

If your old corkscrew bears the name Singleton, you may be pleased to hear that even his less complicated corkscrews can be worth in the region of £300 to £500 "or a lot more", says Mr Cox.

John Read, who made penknives and cutlery in Skinner's Row, Dublin, in the mid 18th century, also made valuable corkscrews. For instance, the Read's Coaxer which "looks very ordinary, like a straight handle with a collar on it", is worth in the region of £3,000 to £4,000, says Mr Cox.

John Fox of Dublin made pocket corkscrews in the early 18th century. Fox's "portable, little pocket ones, sometimes with an animal head, and usually impressed with his name", can make £1,000 if they're in good condition. "We have sold examples in excess of that," says Mr Cox.

While some people collect corkscrews of the 18th or 19th centuries, others go for novelty corkscrews. For instance, there are at least 57 varieties of the socalled Lady's Legs corkscrew by Steinfield and Reimer, which can be worth £200 to £300.

One wonders what Freud would have made of it all, even when corkscrews aren't explicit and they sometimes are. There's a French novelty corkscrew where the handle is formed as outstretched legs, with a representation of male genitalia on one side and female genitalia on the other. "Chaps that go for it are very keen," says Mr Cox.

A popular corkscrew with collectors is the Shrapnel, patented by H.N.S. Shrapnel. These make about £3,000 to £4,000. In 1840, Shrapnel presented an exhibition piece in silver-gilt made in the form of a cannon barrel to Prince Albert, in the unfruitful hope that his father, the inventor of the exploding shell, would be honoured.

Quite a number of corkscrews from 1900 to the 1930s can be valuable, even though they may look quite ordinary, but the most valuable pieces date from the 18th and 19th centuries.

Corkscrews from the 1960s onwards tend not to be valuable but some from the 1940s and 1950s are becoming collectable. For instance, a French single-lever corkscrew called the Traifor, a 1949 patent, can fetch between £400 and £500. "They're rare but they could be out there. Once in a while someone sends one in," says Mr Cox.

In the 19th century, there were as many as 350 British patents for corkscrews, almost as many American, and lots of German, French and Scandinavian registered designs.

One unsuccessful corkscrew, in a design registered by Robert Jones II in 1842, fetched £9,500 sterling in recent years. Perhaps not wishing to tempt fate, Christie's are quoting a guide price of only £5,000 to £6,000 sterling for a similar piece in their next corkscrew sale scheduled for September 22nd.