All it takes is one slip of the hand. At some point during the storied life of an old house a painter carelessly slops paint onto beautifull bronze hinges. Once breeched by paint the frontiers of a doors mortises mean less and less to subsequent painters. The result is that sooner or later someone just paints them over-and badly, to boot.
Over time they get re-coated again and again with a coat of oil based paint here, some latex there. Different paints expand and contract differently with the seasons so eventually they crack and chip so badly that they end up in a dumpster.
This would be like throwing the one oyster overboard that had pearls in it.
Here's what you do. Get yourself a can of paint stripper. Rock Miracle is a good one. It is easy to find, works really well and is fantastically poisonous. Paint doesn't stand a chance against it. You'll want a steel pail, a pair of pliers, a bronze, tooth brush-sized wire brush and chemical resistant gloves.
Put the hinges and screws in a pail and pour in enough stripper to cover them, then forget about the whole thing until the next day. Put on your gloves and take the hinges out one at a time with the pliers and wash them under cold running water, cleaning off the now melted paint with the wire brush.
A word of caution: Paint stripper is dumb stuff. It doesn't know a painted hinge from a painter's hand so protect yourself always.
Have fun painting.
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