Well, the world sure is a disgusting, disgusting place! You may have received the email that has been going around for a while detailing how many litres of other people anal gases you inhale in a day … how many litres of urine you ingest in an hour of swimming in a public pool … what percentage of doorknobs have traces of semen on them … and how many bugs you are likely to swallow in a year, while you are asleep. If you were as horrified as we were upon reading all of this, you may be glad to know that in a small way, you can fight the power of germs, by choosing brass door knobs!

Apparently it is quite a common teaching exercise for people in the medical profession to go around taking samples from various surfaces that we might commonly encounter and analyzing the germs that can be found on them. It makes sense – it would definitely drive home, in an absolutely unarguable way, why they must wash their hands and wear gloves after every time they touch medical waste, or in between patients, or before they go fiddling around with your precious, hygienic innards! (more…)

This is what can happen when you have a door with a knocker, but no backplate… but only if you have many centuries of knocking to wait around for!
This knocker is another one from France – it resides in Lyon. You wouldn’t guess it from the photo though, would you? The dust, the grain of the wood, and the pitting of the metal all seem just a bit too raw and real to be in sophisticated France! This knocker is a very far cry from the Louis-style hardware that is prevalent among antique doors.

Photo credits: Rusty Old Door Knocker by Anthony Dawson

Many of our genuine antiques date from a time that your grandparents, or their grandparents may have seen. However, if you have a penchant for the times of swords and scabbards, damsels in distress, mead, quests and adventures … when men were men, and all women were ladies, princesses or fishwives, then you should love these dragon door knockers.

Perhaps they might also be useful in scaring away people you don’t want to knock on your door … and they definitely shouldn’t be stolen! If I had lifted noe ofthese doorknockers from somebody’s door, I’d be worried about it coming to life at night while I was asleep, and ripping out my still-beating heart … !

Great if you like a bit of danger in your life!

This crazy knocker is in France, and not in general keeping with the usual charm and traditionalism of French architecture! It is in Grenoble, where there is apparently a ‘magic square’, and much of the surrounding architecture is themed around the occult and magic.
As an interesting side note, his hair looks very similar to a lion’s mane – the most usual door knocker motif, worldwide! I wonder if the artisan was simply so used to making lion knockers, that everything else came out looking a bit lion-ish, too. The set of his eyes is also similar, although if it were a lion, the smile would be more a snarl, and therefore scarier. On this guy, it just makes him look like a bit more of a thoughtful insane asylum patient!

Photo credits: Old door by Nyx

Now, if you don’t like door knobs, you have no reason to be reading this blog … but perhaps you have just run out of inspiration for new knob themes in your house, or you now have an extra door, but can’t source a matching handle to go with your other antique ones. Well, this door handle might be a little big for us to ship – but it is definitely one of the more interesting ones we have seen around!

It is actually a book. A Sherlock Holmes book, in a piece of intentional serendipity – and it opens the door to this person’s hot water service closet! While we can’t imagine it replacing the old twist handle, or even the lever handle, and it is arguably more or less secure than a traditional key-lock, it is definitely more ingenious.

(more…)