another BIN

On the heels of spending way too much money on the strait patent, I clicked on ebay stores this morning, and lo and behold, a Gemelli Clown was sitting there for a whopping price of 9.99.  I snapped it up immediately. 

 

No fleas today or tomorrow…so I am stuck inside (it’s raining) reading educational texts…however, the wine has been opened, so things are looking up.

sailing the seas of eBay

There was a Strait Patent corkscrew on ebay listed a couple of days ago, and oddly it had received no bids.  Now typically, someone would have bid right away.  When this happens, it is a dead giveaway that someone is trying to get the seller to add a buy it now; as after there is a bid, one cannot do that.

 

The item was in my "watch" list, and I popped on ebay this morning, and there was a BIN acheived.  It was pricey for me, but the last Strait that I saw sell was in the 1200 range, and Ken sold the one on his site for 1400.  I hemmed and hawed for 20 seconds, and decided I better act before anyone else saw it.

 

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two walker corkscrews

In Nashville, I passed on a Walker display corkscrew that was awesome.  About 5 times the size of a normal Walker, and a nice Walker ad across the handle, it was impressive.  The tip of the worm was missing, so I opted not. 

 

Today, I managed another Walker corkscrew.  Pinned on the side of the handle, it is unusual, but not marked.

 

Check out the pictures and see the Walker oddity.  Do you guys have one?

corkscrewing again

The pictures are, as promised, below…but…  I listed the Mumford, the pigbutt will be sent to Peter, and I found this… an interesting clough corkscrew with an advertisement for advertising corkscrews…quite the funny piece.  I have many of these but this is the first with such an ad.  Also..who is hankering for champagne flavored chewing tabacco….yuck

 

 

back from Nashville

Well, it was a whirlwind trip…filled with some great conversation, a couple corkscrews, and several guinesses (or is that guinei). 

 

I did manage a couple of corkscrews, and sold some others.  For Mr. Borrett, I bid at the live auction and managed to win a rare colonial crafts pig butt corkscrew.  Now, it is a repainted one, but the hot pink bottom, black corkscrew tail, and stiletto heels to match, surely will suit Peter’s fancy.

 

After looking very closely at the Mumford there is a small crack in the brass bell that houses the prongs.  So, this will be put up for sale at a deep discount.  Not 700 it should get, but closer to 400 (hint hint Mark)…even with the crack, it is beautiful!

 

I will send pictures later….

 

 

day one continued…

I made it to the flea market early, dodging a huge rainstorm, and manged to find 3 openers and 3 corkscrews.  The three corkscrews I left behind, and the three openers I just sold as I was typing this for pretty much what they cost me, and the cat that bought them seemed pleased.

 

After departing the flea for a quick coffee, albeit bad coffee, run, I headed back over and ran in to several other JFO’ers…in fact on my way out, one dealer said, "I am glad you got that opener, there have been 10 people asking for them already this morning."

 

Ahhhhhh, the waitress with my guiness is approaching.  time for lunch

 

 

 

Day 1

Well, after finally getting to Nashville, I hopped in my car and zipped up to the hotel.  Upon checking in, Herb Danziger, stopped me to introduce himself.  We had never met, but had exchanged emails several times about syroco.

 

After going up to my room, I decided to see what was going on, and found myself in the convention/meeting room dedicated to the JFO.  Not filled with openers, that is relegated at the moment to each members room.  The big show is on Saturday.  That said, there was a couple of boxes in the corner and perched on the top is a beatifully marked Mumford–with a hefty pricetag to boot.  I reached in my bag of tricks and thru out a couple of corkscrews and openers…without a word, just simply a glance and smile a deal between John Stanley and I was done.  The mumford is mine.

 

Pictures to follow…

 

Also, all these cats were talking about going to the flea market at noon today…however, there is an early entry at 8 am… I am going to see if I can beat them there….

 

more later

 

 

 

instant company

well, I was sitting here trying to heal from the overweight bag…im speaking of the suitcase not the person carrying the aforementioned luggage, when suddenly 4 women, one toting a beer, and their significant others arrived and started talking.   So far, we have ascertained one is an lawyer, one is a professor at columbia college in chicago (who is getting tutoring on how to use his phone from the girl next to him), and one of the women is trying not to read over my shoulder whilst I type.

 

stuck at the airport

As I type this, I am sitting at Midway Airport in Chicago. 

 

After seeing the lovely bride off on a flight to Los Angeles, I wandered over to gate 18 (where I am currently planted) to check out my own flight to Nashville for the Just For Openers Convention.  The flight was supposed to leave at 5:15.  And, to this point the reported delay is 45 minutes.  Not a long time, but there are many many many other things I would rather be doing than sitting next to 157 other people waiting to get on a plane, only to complain for 1:15 minutes while they are crammed together.

 

At last count, 110 of those waiting were on their cellphones, 20 are reading books, 5 are diligently working on their laptops, and (OUCH) one just ran her suitcase across my foot.

 

I am bringing an interesting patent opener for Don hopefully to identify.  It looks like a little badge and has much writing which should make it easy to figure out, but I have never seen anything like it.

 

I know that I am rambling, but they really should make green velour jogging outfits illegal… there would be a visual here, but my camera is in my checked luggage–trust me, you are all better off for not seeing this…

 

Somebody just whacked the laptop off my lap with her oversized luggage, which clearly will never fit in the over head.  It was pretty hefty though, perhaps it is filled with openers as well.

 

More tomorrow from the convention, with pictures to boot…(god, I wish people would cover their noses when they sneeze).

 

 

 

 

 

 

9 holes

par, bogey, double, double, bogey, bogey, bogey, par, bogey – for 9 over…

 

on the other hand, i didn’t lose a ball.  And, on a par three, I miss hit, and the ball skipped three times off the lake and rolled on o the fringe of the green.  Well, if the corkscrew gods aren’t shining on me, at least the Nike-Mojo-Golf-Ball gods gave me a break.

 

Off to Nashville tomorrow afternoon… hopefully there will be some corkscrews to be found before the convention starts….