From these images, that are labeled in Cope’s book as,

Combined Corkscrew, Can Opener,

Ice-Pick &e, Corkscrew with Pick or Wire Stripper, Combined Corkscrew Ice-Pick, Breaker &e,

Self-Extracting Corkscrew,

and

Giant Self-Extracting Corkscrew

we can see the open oblong

handle with pick and can opener, or spike and breaker, the solid decorative handle, and

oblong handle. The odd man out in this grouping would be Frary’s

Giant

corkscrew on the

far right—that is until you look closely at the frame which is the exact size and casting as

the Frary Fifth Avenue.

And, here is where it gets interesting, and the purpose of this article. It seems, that there

are many variations of these designs; or, as I like to call it

, Frary-ations

. The decorative

handle shows up without the breaker and spike, with a bell assist. The same decorative

handle has turned up on the Giant frame. A couple of years ago, I picked up a Frary with

the decorative cast iron handle corkscrew with an unmarked 1883 Dunisch and Scholer

“Hercules” type frame. The Hercules—while not shown in Cope’s book, is definitely Frary.

It would seem that our man Frary was importing mechanisms from Germany, and adding

his own cast iron handles; or, in the case of the Fifth Avenue bar screw, taking a German

frame and adding a bit more to it.

Adding a different handle, putting in the hammer and spike, using a Bennit‐style bell assist,

changing size or finish, there seems to be a great deal of variations. While I will be

researching and publishing a much more in depth article in the future, which will concern

James D. Frary, Meriden Malleable Iron, Landers, Frary, & Clark and their histories

together, I encourage you to examine the photos of the Frary corkscrews that follow, and

check your own collection to see if there are other Frary‐ations out there. And, if you do

have a variation, please email me at

Josef@vintagecorkscrews.com

for inclusion in the

future article. Also, if you want to part with yours, I am open to a trade or two.