Short Stories: Elizabethan Galleon Door Knocker

Etsy.com handmade and vintage goods
GladysGlover

Story by GladysGlover

Published on Aug 08, 2012 in Read

Here at Etsy, we believe that the story behind an object is often just as fascinating as the object itself. Short Stories is our series dedicated to telling the tales behind extraordinary pieces found or created by Etsy sellers.

This nautical knocker listed by Gladys Glover has us yearning for the sea (or at least, a cottage by the sea). Here’s Jane with a little bit about its history.

I truly love old things and history, and I spend a lot of time in Britain because it’s my husband’s home. Oh yes, a hopeless romantic, that’s me. This old door knocker came from an even older cottage in Dwygyfylchi (pronounced, roughly: doo-ee-geh-vul-chee), North Wales. Dwygyfylchi is perched in a mountainous region bounded on the east by the estuary of the fabled Conwy River, which there falls into the Irish sea. The owner replaced it with a Welsh dragon knocker.

This knocker is non-magnetic silver metal and it’s fairly compact at 3 1/4 inches long by 2 1/2 wide. It’s marked ‘England’ on the back, although you need a magnifying glass to read it. On a banner beneath the ship and waves, it reads “Elizabethan Galleon.” There is patina front and back, but no corrosion, and it’s likely Victorian, according to an expert/collector friend.

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