Featured Specialty Hardware

Dear Junctioneers,

My name is Hana Jimenez and I’d like to tell you a story. It is a story about locks, door hardware, Construction Junction, and an American Industrialist named Philip Corbin.

Philip Corbin was born in 1824 in Wilmington Connecticut. At age 19 he began working in a New Britain hardware factory owned by the Matteson, Russell & Erwin Company. This began his historic lock making career and ultimately led to the founding of the P. F. Corbin company. The Corbin company was so successful that there was eventually a merger between it and the Russwin (previously Russell & Erwin Company) in 1902. Philip Corbin died just 8 years later (at 86 years of age), but imagine the pride he must have felt at having a company so prosperous that it was able to merge with the company that first employed him as an entry level factory worker.

Why am I telling you all this? Because this isn’t history. Corbin Russwin Incorporated exists and is still making locks even today, and the legacy of Phillip Corbin himself is on my desk as I write this. A working antique for any door in your home (provided you can fit it). A door hardware set so stunning, it has been replicated time and time again, but nothing has come close to matching it. The locking mechanism (the mortise lock) is in a case of cast iron, decorated and protected with a coat of black enamel known as Japanning. The hardware itself, the strike plate, the knobs, and the plates, are all solid cast brass.

Salvaged from a local church by our own Deconstruction team and a prime example of the Gothic Revival architectural movement, this door hardware is not only a piece of Corbin’s history, of Pittsburgh’s history, or even CJ’s history, but also a standalone piece of art. Maybe you, dear reader, can give it the home it deserves. Make sure to check out more great reclaimed hardware on our Featured Inventory page and swing past the specialty hardware displays by the register to see even more!

Specialty pieces like this, as well as so much more of the material that is available in our store each day, wouldn’t make it’s way here without CJ’s deconstruction crew. That program is only possible because of the support we receive from shoppers, donors, grants, and funds raised by our annual Steel City Big Pour. We’re proud to do the leg work that makes architectural salvage and waste diversion possible!