Hold That Door

QUESTION: My mother collected doorstops. She had a collection of about 50 which she left to me when she died. I know very little about them, but I’d like to continue collecting them. What can you tell me about them—how did they originate and when, and how collectable are they today?

ANSWER: It’s great that you plan on continuing your mother’s collection. Most people seem to want to get rid of whatever items they inherit while others just warehouse them. But curating and growing a collection is different. Now it’s up to you to figure out just what doorstops you have, selling those that aren’t very good and adding those that will enhance your collection. But first, you need to learn a bit about their history.

Doorstops date back to the last quarter of the 18th century, around the time of the American Revolution, but in England. They came in a variety of shapes and sizes and held open large doors. The British called them “door porters” and liked the cast in iron or bronze.

By the early 1800s, doorstops began appearing in a variety of materials, including wood, glass, and earthenware. The cast-iron doorstops had flat backs from the hollow molds used to make them, allowing them to stand flat against the surface of the doors.

By the middle of the 19th century and especially following the Civil War, doorstops had evolved into full three-dimensional figures and were becoming increasingly popular in the United States.

American manufacturers followed the basic English tradition of making cast-iron doorstops in the familiar shape of baskets and flowers. They also began to develop a variety of attractive shapes, including houses, ships, stagecoaches, and all kinds of wild and domestic animals. American makers hand painted them in bright colors until all sorts of colorful doorstops were readily available.

By the 1880s, it wasn’t unusual to find iron birds, story book characters, and even a few human-type figures propping doors where ventilation was seasonally so important in so much of the country.

Some believe the Amish developed the use of the human figure as a doorstop to its fullest form starting in the 1880s and continuing into the 1930s. They cast figures of men, women and children, painted them with pleasing facial features, and dressed them in time-honored Amish clothing. These seven to nine inch high doorstops today sell for a minimum of several hundred dollars each.

Casting techniques had improved enough prior to the turn of the 20th century to enable foundries in the U.S. to manufacture nearly every design of doorstop a home owner could want. In fact, some of the firms invited customers to send detailed sketches of doorstops, so that they could create them. But all this variety of design resulted in variations in both the size and weight of doorstops. Heights ranged from four or five inches to two feet.

One of the most popular forms of doorstops was the dog. Manufacturers produced doorstops in the shapes of just about every breed of dog, from Alaskan Malamutes to Russian Wolfhounds to a variety of terriers. Many of these animals were full figure, cast in two parts, screwed together, and painted.

The Albany Foundry Company of Albany, New York, and A.M. Greenblatt Studios of Boston, Massachusetts, were among the major manufacturers of doorstops in the early 20th century. Both did a booming business in the late 1920s, selling cast-iron doorstops  for about a dollar each.

Additional firms included Hubley Manufacturing Company in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, which made toys, Littco Products, National Foundry, and Eastern Specialty Manufacturing Company.

Doorstops were still quite effective and desirable well into the 1930s. Generally, production ceased abruptly at the onset of World War II, since factories converted to production of war materiel.

Today, antique doorstops sell for $50 or so in good condition, but can go as high as $200 for some special ones.

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A Victorian Necessity

QUESTION: I have several old cast-iron doorstops that I’ve picked up here and there over the years. I wouldn’t go so far as say that I have a collection, but I have maybe a half dozen. Can you tell me anything about these doorstops?

ANSWER: Your doorstops are most likely from the late 19th century or the early 20th. The British made what they called “door porters,” after door attendants, around 1770, after the invention of the butt-hinged door, which closed automatically. To prevent the door from closing by itself, people began to prop heavy items in front of it, thus the name “doorstop.”

Makers of early doorstops made them not of cast iron but of molded earthenware and fitted with an upright rod, or handle, about 18 inches long, which eliminated the need for bending down to move the stop from place to place. In succeeding years, doorstops might be fashioned from earthenware, wood, marble, or glass—several New England glass companies created glass doorstops shaped like turtles  during the 19th century. All were heavy enough or sufficiently weighted to work well.

However, makers created doorstops mainly from bronze, brass, and iron. Brass ones—usually with a weighted base—often resembled a solid bell sliced in half and fitted with a long handle. Around 1810, handles generally disappeared from doorstops. Newer, knobbier shapes—some with built-in handles that permitted easy grasping came into vogue. Yet the Victorian brass doorstops with rod-like handles can still be found today.

The early 1800s heralded brass doorstops in a broad variety of classical and traditional designs. A bit later—in response to improved techniques in the casting of iron—a long and fanciful parade of cast-iron doorstops began their prolonged march from English iron factories. Some were full figured while others were flat backed and similar to the popular Staffordshire-pottery images of cottages and animals that captivated English hearts during the 1800s. Figures of Punch and Judy, Shakespearean characters, and such historical persons as Benjamin Disraeli and the Duke of Wellington emerged.

Though iron became an building material, cast-iron doorstops didn’t appear until after the Civil War. These doorstops varied greatly in size. A frog-shaped doorstop might measure little more than three inches high while a cat might be as tall as 19 inches. Others ranged from 6 to10 inches high. Those issued from the 1850s until about 1900 were heavier than later ones, as they appeared when brass and iron were less costly and more freely used.

The majority of metal doorstops found nowadays at antiques shows and shops originated during the late 1800s and early 1900s, and their design is often the key to determining their vintage. A figure of a Scottie dog, for instance, points to the 1920s and 1930s, when this breed of dog was popular and appeared on everything from jewelry to playing cards. Similarly, a painted, stylized vase of bright-blooming flowers corresponds to the 1920s–30s Art Deco period.

Thayer & Chandler of Chicago, maker of artists' supplies, and Hubley, a toy-maker, both issued doorstops. In the early 1900s, Thayer & Chandler helped popularize the baskets or vases of flowers that collectors now favor.

During the past 10 years, prices of doorstops have risen markedly. It's not uncommon to find an unusual or rare figural—two kittens in colorful painted attire or an American Indian—selling for hundreds of dollars. However, an aware buyer can find antique doorstops for under $100—some for even as little as $50. Most sell in the $75-90 range. Rare ones can go for as high as $300. It’s important to look for old doorstops that still have a amount of their original paint since repainting decreases the value of an old piece.

Many collectors acquire doorstops to those with a specific motif, such as those with a nautical flavor—lighthouses, clipper ships, mariners---or others with a Western theme---Indians, cowboys, stagecoaches. There are also collectors who seek monkeys, ducks, clowns, gnomes, and so on.