Shabby White Science Desk/Making New Hardware Look Old

For this week's White Wednesday (please go visit Kathleen's blog Faded Charm and say thank you to her for hosting this weekly event), I have a two-fold mission. First, to show this piece hubby and I picked up MANY years ago in Canton, Texas. We thought at the time it was some kind of primitive kitchen piece. We have since discovered it is probably a very old science desk out of a classroom. It has the places for the pipes to come up the back for the bunson burners or whatever is used in science. (Can you tell it has been too long since I've been in a science classroom?) I love the patina of the chippy paint...mostly creamy white but a little blue is sneaking through.

The old metal top is neat too.

Our daughter currently has possession of this piece and she loves the way it works as a sofa table in her home. And it was a desk for partners. How cute is that!

It has the most wonderful hardware. You can't recreate this look!

Or can you? Hence, the second part of my mission. The main problem with the piece is that it was missing one of these:

So I bought a new one and painted it to look like the old one. Can you tell which is old and which is new?

Honestly, I am not really sure. It has been 4 years ago and I think the bottom one is the one I painted. It has held up pretty well. It gets used A LOT by my babygrands, 3-year old Reid, and 1-year old Caroline! After all, toys are inside!