|
We have no evidence that anyone in Austria has ever made a fake Auböck corkscrew or forged an Auböck mark.
There has been much fakery of the work of the other designers, so why not with Auböck? One reason could be that Auböck corkscrews are very large brass objects, larger than almost any lost-wax shop’s equipment can handle. Another is that Auböck also incorporated natural material such as leather, cow horn, or rattan into many of their designs. This requires a lot of time and a very skilled craftsperson to reproduce. Probably most important, Werkstätte Carl Auböck is still in business and quite capable of defending their property rights. So if you buy a brass Auböck corkscrew, the odds are extremely high that it is a real Auböck corkscrew. We have found very few corkscrews that even try to be an Auböck corkscrew. Above, from left, are two modern “Made in China” pot metal corkscrews, unmarked. The first is a direct copy of the Auböck skull, the next is a adaptation, but we have included it because some collectors think it is an Auböck piece despite the wimpy wire worm. The chrome plating is a dead giveaway; this never happened at Auböck after the 1930s. Next comes the nickel plated pot metal corkscrew marked Mockba (Moscow) with a terrible worm, a much smaller version of Auböck design #3559. The aluminum three-holes-in-the-handle version of the #3559 came from the Czech Republic; it is unmarked and has the same worm. |
