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 door knobs 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...

Well, we have said it before, that you only know that something has real value when somebody else in the world thinks it is worth stealing! It has been reported that gangs across Britain have been stealing brass and other items – tens of millions of pounds worth – in order to feed a growing demand for metals in India and China, as their construction industries boom. We are not talking about a few isolated incidents here, of things that are unusual to steal, but not inconceivable (like, for instance, a traditional and well-made door knob!). Apparently these thefts are on an absolutely huge scale...

Door handles are one of those things that have not changed very much in hundreds of years … our genuine antiques still look, and more importantly still function pretty much like door handles that are made today. This also makes it possible to easily and fairly economically create reproductions of antique door knobs also. They are not like the antique iron (which was, at a time, little more than a piece of shaped metal, heated, with a wooden handle so that you could hold it without burning yourself. They are also, at this stage (!) not like the antique clothes dryer – which had no electrical...

Brass was once the predominant material for creating home hardware – it was cheap, readily available, and looked just a little bit like gold, for a touch of class. It has now mostly been replaced by steel or other alloys which technology has made more prevalent, but for those of us who love the mystery, lure and romance of anything old, brass is still a big part of our lives. From rings, to ornaments, to door hardware … if you want to look after your brass items, you will need to know specifically how to clean brass. That’s where the stark impersonality of modern technology actually comes...

Although probably the most common material for our hardware to be made of is brass, iron is definitely the most individual, the most romantic, and the oldest and most generally used metal of olden days. The iron, and ironing have been the bane of many a mum and housewife. Iron horseshoes are said to bring good luck. Burying an iron knife under your door can keep witches out, and iron fences keep the souls of the dead in. It was traditionally known as ‘cold iron’… although ‘cold iron’ really is just ordinary iron that isn’t warm! Ah, they had a sense of drama in the old days… So, we...

Before we go any further into this post, can we just say that every single one of our door knobs is meticulously cleaned before it goes anywhere near a postage box! Something you’d take for granted, I know, but you’ll be glad of it before you finish reading about this… Earlier this year NBC’s Dallas office reported on a Texas invention that saves people from touching public toilet doors with their hands. It is basically a foot pull that allows you to open doors without touching them with your hands. We know, nearly everyone in the world has been touching bathroom doors all of their lives,...

When it comes to articles, the BBC’s h2g2 site is like a comic strip version of about.com – with a definite British twist of lime in the humour. This article about door decoration goes a little beyond the pure comedy value of some of the articles (like the one about how to knock on doors!), and you can actually get a bit of insight and use out of the author’s writing… Door decorations, according to the article, range from the simple nameplate, to simple decorations like quotes or photos, to cartoons depicting bitter office workers (rings so true!), to family-oriented door decoration. I’d...

Here at Architectural Classics we often have gorgeous, very old antique door hardware … and the newer ones fall by the wayside a little. But we couldn’t go past these gorgeous frog door knobs! They are made with a light silver resin to look like alloy, and the backplates are created with both brass and bakelite rings for strength and endurance. Unfortunately, the only thing we can’t guarantee about them is that by kissing them, you will turn them into princes! Gosh knows what you would even do with two princes … they might end up fighting over you and slaying each other, and then you would...

The James Gibbons foundry is a very famous foundry in the UK, and it is really fascinating to read about the people and processes on the frontline of creating some of the architectural classics in our collection (albeit the newer pieces). We often look at how things are used, what you can do with them in your own home, and the weird and wonderful ways people reinvent old concepts – but it has been rare that we’ve looked at how things were actually made, and how these pieces began their life. The James Gibbons products will be our bread and butter in a hundred years time, but are quite classic...

At Architectural Classics, we are all about the details. After all, you could fudge through with plain door handles from any old shop in your home …but, fair enough, you don’t want to! We don’t either. These knob notes are all about the details and subtleties as well. They are modeled on the Victorian era, so the colours, the style and the clothing that the characters are all wearing is from the mid-1800s or so. They are a great way to fit your accessories in with any ‘style’ home from the 1700s to late 1800s though. One of the subtleties you’ll find in these knob notes though, is...