Glass

• Straight Shank Style
• Tapered Shank Style
• Mercury Glass

Brass, Iron, Bronze

• Eastlake Style 1865-1890
• Arts and Crafts Style 1895-1920
• Art Deco 1925-1950

Mineral Knobs

Glass

• Straight Shank Style - By the end of the last century most glass knobs were using a straight shank rolled tightly around the glass portion of the knob. They can be cut glass or pressed glass. Fluted glass was very popular. Solarization, where the glass takes on lavender to purple hews naturally from the sun are very desirable.
• Tapered Shank Style - the first patent for applying a glass knob to a metal shank was awarded in 1837. They were used as entry and passage doors, made of pressed glass usually octagonal is shaped. Many have a crisscross center of molten lead which was forced into the space between the glass and the brass shank.
• Mercury Glass - From the 1850's through the 1870's mercury glass knobs were actually a silver nitrate coating, the same used in hand blown Christmas ornaments. The "Mercury" inside can be a bubble, star or bullet shaped.

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Brass, Iron, Bronze

• Eastlake style 1865-1890- primarily on the first floor of a home these ornate pieces of hardware were used. Choices of styles and materials were vast during the Industrial revolution.
• Victorian style 1880-1915 - Traditional opulent styling
• Arts and crafts style 1895-1920 - Simplicity rises from the excesses of the Industrial revolution. Simple and functional
• Art Deco 1925-1950 a style that looked toward the future rather than mimicking the past. Streamlined and straight forward.
• So many metal knobs were supplied to the WWII armament effort.

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Mineral

• Mineral knobs - Mineral knobs are actually a baked clay. Jet Black porcelain, White porcelain and Brown speckled and swirled patterns. The white porcelain occasionally become crackled called "crazed". The brown swirled clay which looks like a marble, was made by combining several colors and manually swirling the wet material, then finished with a varnish coating to enhance the design. Plain brown preceded the variegated. They were a utility knob used in humble dwellings.

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