Corkscrew Curiosities — at 120 N. Elm St., Henderson, KY — overflows with peculiar and intriguing items from the past. But the richest history inside the antique store (a cozy cubicle inside The Elm Consignment shop) is the story of Corkscrew itself.
From 1978 to 1991 Anna Jane Stanley, who passed away in 2016, owned Corkscrew Deli at the corner of Main and First Streets in Henderson. While Stanley was proud of her business, she shared her true passion with her family, especially her granddaughters and owners of Corkscrew Curiosities, Jasmine Elzy and Kyla Ford.
“Every Saturday during the summer and spring it was waking up, getting donuts, grabbing the paper, and going to garage sales,” says Elzy.
Elzy, a 31-year-old mother and administrative assistant at Fuller Tax Service in Henderson, and Ford, a 27-year-old employee and student at the University of Southern Indiana pursuing a degree in English, decided to turn Stanley’s tradition into a business in July 2020 by opening an Etsy store.
The cousins opened their retail location on Halloween 2020, offering antiques such as uranium glass, vintage photos and posters, dolls and toys, medical equipment, and insect specimens and taxidermy oddities from two animal preservation art shops Amothecary and Alluring Lurid.
“We sell misfit antiques,” says Elzy. “We find things people wouldn’t think of as something they would want and put it in an environment where they can see that’s something they would want.”
Adorned with Elzy’s eclectic twist on the deli’s original logo, the shop has new inventory weekly as the cousins scour the Tri-State daily for the perfect products.
In addition to their store, Corkscrew has an Etsy shop and Facebook Live auctions which have allowed them to sell products as far as Australia.
“It’s about bringing things to someone who will appreciate them,” says Elzy. “COVID-19 is what we’re trying to get over now and once that happens — the sky’s the limit.”
Revamping Resale
corkscrewcurio.com
