The Talking Machine Forum — For All Antique Phonographs & Recordings

I know nickel and gold plated hardware (knobs, hinges, etc) are shiny, but what about the hardware on a Credenza? It looks so dull and tarnished. Were the knobs and door hinges like that originally or were they shiny?
Thanks!!

The parts are gold-plated, with a dull matte finish, and then lacquered. The coating goes often bad cosmetically. You can remove and replace it, but use no abrasives because the gold is super thin.

No, I mean the door knobs (pulls) and door hinges. All of the gold hardware is in great shape.

Not sure if they would have received any different treatment. My credenza had dark bronze knobs outside iirc. And I don’t believe I ever noticed the storage or horn door hinges. But the lid hinge and all under the lid hardware should all have the same matte gold and lacquer approach.

cweastlick wrote:No, I mean the door knobs (pulls) and door hinges. All of the gold hardware is in great shape.

The knobs and door hinges on my early electric Credenza are what I would call antique bronze, or similar to it.

Sean

The exterior hardware on the Credenza was never shiny. As the others mentioned, it came from the factory with an antique bronze finish.

I know you aren't talking about the gold plated hardware, but a couple of years ago I asked an old guy how they did the gold plating the way they did it on Victrolas to get that dull finish. He started plating when he was young in the 30's and said it was copper plated first and then dipped in acid. Then it was gold plated. He said it only takes 3-4 seconds to get the gold plating on over the copper, and the gold is thin enough (as we all know) that they copper gives it the color that you will not get if the gold is plated over brass. He said that finishes like that haven't been popular for a long time. Nice old guy, holy cow were his hands all gnarled up from work.