Chris Barge's Corkscrew Story.

As a young child I was taken round the country house sales in Suffolk by my father who furnished his house with antiques and also collected china. In 1983 I moved to Inverness to work and wanted to resurrect my childhood interest in antiques. I started by looking at scientific instruments and purchased a wood barreled Dolland telescope for £110 which then successfully sold for £1100. Realising that this type of collectable was very scarce I looked around for something smaller and more available to buy and that's how I came to collect buy/sell corkscrews. My first purchase was in about 1985 at the Meadowbank stadium antique fair in Edinburgh. I remember buying a German double spring for £7 and a small 18th century folding bow without a case for £2-50. It was black and not recogisable as silver and it lay in a bowl of miscellaneous items. I don't think I fully understood what I had purchased, but oh for those days...........