We got a great vintage brass knocker for the front door (see below) from Portland Architectural Salvage where a friend works, and have been looking for a second, similar (but not match-y) one for the back door.
Ebay to the rescue.
I hadn't been on Ebay for quite a while, but a couple of weeks ago just randomly logged on and searched through the door knocker results. I happened upon this beauty, which miraculously did not say 'Eastlake' anywhere in the title or description. That little omission and the bare-bones description were enough to apparently keep it off some folks' radar screen, because I won it with the opening bid. I won't make you jealous by saying what that bid was, but it wasn't much more than, say, a quality 6-pack of microbrew. Unbelievable.
We confirmed that it's solid when it showed up (the ol' magnet trick), and it's really quite nice. It's got a lot of weight to it, and it even came with a nicely-worn clavo to knock against. I think it might be bronze, since it's a bit richer in color than most of our old brass.
So yesterday I broke out my secret jar of antique oval head slotted screws and installed it. Partway through, I realized it actually needed round head screws because the screw holes were not beveled. Fortunately there were two of those guys in the jar along with the oval heads. So I got that goin' for me. And that's nice.
The only bummer is that the weatherstripping makes it so that the knocker has to be just slightly off-center with respect to the knob & lock, but we'll fix that when I get the door off and re-done later this summer or fall. For now, we're OK with one lopsided knocker. Straight to the gutter again :)
3 comments:
Wow! This is gorgeous - what a find. Thom and I love reading your blog - you two are a hoot. We really should meet up sometime downtown for a drink and share stories (or maybe we'll just mooch tips off of you).
Very nice! I just delved into Ebay hardware... there's some good deals if you know how to look!
What an awesome find!
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