Corkscrews: a passion

“Among all the objects most dear to me are those which have been used. Bent at the corners and dented; copper receptacles; forks and knives with wooden handles made shiny from the many hands which have touched them; similar shapes appear to me the most noble. Like stone slabs surrounding old homes, smoothed, flattened by many steps, between each of which grows grass; these are happy objects. Penetrated in their use by many, often mutated, bettered in shape, they are more precious because they were so often appreciated.”

A thought by Bertolt Brecht, printed on a piece of cardstock the size of a business card which the engineer Paolo De Sanctis keeps in his wallet and shows his interlocutors when trying to explain and transfer his passion for utensils, to which he timidly adds, “I’m not sure I’m explaining myself properly…”.

“You see, I love gadgets because they were created for a specific purpose. For many people [making gadgets] was a way of getting work; it meant bread to eat. With time it was improved to simplify its use and increase its productivity…”

Paolo De Sanctis is rightly famous for his collection of corkscrews.
He has written several books on the subject, one which he is compiling with his friends of the AICC of which he is the founder.

Gianni Montanari
Il Giornale, Sunday 23 April 1989.

“Before AICC’s birth”

Incipit Cavar…turaccioli book
While organising the papers in my study I chanced upon some old, yellowed photocopies of a book edited by the Press Office of the City of Milan in 1969, entitled ‘Collection of Milanese Collectors’.

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