Uploaded August 2026 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago
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Tim is not the sort of person to bottle it! But he does love the more zany bottles that he has added to his collection over the years.
There used to be a shop in London that specialised in selling items that had been specifically designed for people that are left handed. Tim was a fan of this shop, and he has some of their items in his collection. However what he starts of by demonstrating here is a bottle opener that can be operated using just one hand - either the left or the right hand! Of course there are also those bottle openers that are built into the counter, and you can present the bottle with one hand and remove the cap just using one hand. But if you haven't got one of those gadgets, this might be quite handy. As it were... ;-) Tim saw this device at a gift fair, and bought a lot of them - and now all his friends have a one handed bottle opener as well!
A regular looking bottle, bit it has a cork in the bottom of the bottle! Larger than a normal bottle cork, so that you could extract the contents easily - the bottle was filled with corks that turned out to be made of chocolate. Sweet!
A drinking glass that has been recycled from a Coca Cola bottle. Waste not, want not.
A bottle that has been painted on the inside. How such an intricate picture can be created on the inside of the bottle, while working through a really quite narrow neck is extremely impressive. It must take a lot of time to create, and as Tim says, bottles like this are quite expensive.
A couple of impossible bottles. One with a complete pack of cards inside and a padlock attached to the underside of the cork such that you cannot remove the cork from the bottle. And then a bottle created by the famous Harry Eng, with a pair of scissors inside, plus a large knot in a piece of rope, which was his hallmark. The know if of course too large to pass through the neck of the bottle, so one assumes that it was somehow tied inside the bottle. Harry never gave away his secrets!
A Klein bottle turned into a sweet container.
And a fairly large bottle with batteries in the base and a lighthouse inside. Remove the cork and a whole soundscape emerges - waves, seagulls, a bell (presumably on a buoy). Very atmospheric!
Sign up for the free Grand Illusions newsletter, at conta.cc/3dplns1
______________________________________________________________________
Tim is not the sort of person to bottle it! But he does love the more zany bottles that he has added to his collection over the years.
There used to be a shop in London that specialised in selling items that had been specifically designed for people that are left handed. Tim was a fan of this shop, and he has some of their items in his collection. However what he starts of by demonstrating here is a bottle opener that can be operated using just one hand - either the left or the right hand! Of course there are also those bottle openers that are built into the counter, and you can present the bottle with one hand and remove the cap just using one hand. But if you haven't got one of those gadgets, this might be quite handy. As it were... ;-) Tim saw this device at a gift fair, and bought a lot of them - and now all his friends have a one handed bottle opener as well!
A regular looking bottle, bit it has a cork in the bottom of the bottle! Larger than a normal bottle cork, so that you could extract the contents easily - the bottle was filled with corks that turned out to be made of chocolate. Sweet!
A drinking glass that has been recycled from a Coca Cola bottle. Waste not, want not.
A bottle that has been painted on the inside. How such an intricate picture can be created on the inside of the bottle, while working through a really quite narrow neck is extremely impressive. It must take a lot of time to create, and as Tim says, bottles like this are quite expensive.
A couple of impossible bottles. One with a complete pack of cards inside and a padlock attached to the underside of the cork such that you cannot remove the cork from the bottle. And then a bottle created by the famous Harry Eng, with a pair of scissors inside, plus a large knot in a piece of rope, which was his hallmark. The know if of course too large to pass through the neck of the bottle, so one assumes that it was somehow tied inside the bottle. Harry never gave away his secrets!
A Klein bottle turned into a sweet container.
And a fairly large bottle with batteries in the base and a lighthouse inside. Remove the cork and a whole soundscape emerges - waves, seagulls, a bell (presumably on a buoy). Very atmospheric!










