** The Big Oil Lantern Thread ! **

Wow, since this thread is de-necro’d. This is an oil lamp from the 1800’s my great grandparents used to use. I ended up with 4 family oil lamps which my grandmother all had converted to electric (in the late 50’s I believe). All original globes and chimneys

Lampe-Pigeon

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Non, je ne parle pas couramment le français ; juste un peu

That’s a beautiful lamp there, French classic.

Beautiful! would be nice if it was still oil.

Awesome lamp!

Found this oil lamp at the city dump. Whoever threw it away, set it beside the dumpster hoping someone would take it and put it to use. There was no chimney and an old nasty wick. The lamp was covered with old oil varnish, was all yellow, and it smelled really bad. I spent some time cleaning it out with acetone and some other things. Bought a new wick, and a new chimney. Bingo, works perfect.

RobertB. Great save

Noice!

wow, nice old oil lamp! :smiley:

I am still looking for a “Aladdin” Brand lamp that is used. New ones are insanely priced.

To those that have never seen one. In a few short words, they are very bright in comparison to other oil lamps.

I have two Aladdin Lanterns and keep them for the nostalgic memories since we used them before electrical power was available where we live. If you run them at too low a brightness, they emit noticeable soot, but otherwise they are great because they can be very bright and quiet (completely silent with a nicer tint compared to white gas Coleman Lanterns).

We have not used the Aladdins recently because unfortunately the replacement "Aladdin Lox-On Mantles" became too expensive (over $30 each) and difficult (if not impossible) to obtain. If anyone knows of a reliable source for the mantles (that is not Ebay), please let me know.

We now use two "BLF LT1" li-ion battery lanterns for power outages and enjoy using them even when we have power. I also occasionally fire up the calcium carbide Miners Lamp that I used as a kid (which was way brighter than the flashlights of that era) and are always surprised it still works like new and that calcium carbide rocks can still be obtained fairly easily. The big disadvantage of the Miners Lamp is that while you have some limited control over the brightness, you don't turn it OFF after it is ON and once you add water to the calcium carbide you need to clean and reload for the next use.

The Big Oil Lantern Thread is a Great idea. Thanks DBSAR.
I find old oil lanterns very interesting.

:+1: :smiley:

To celebrate the revival of the big oil lantern thread I made a picture of my smallest one.

1 Thank

lets also get Roostre to fire up one of his Aladins. Those monsters are really bright in comparison to the single wick oil lamps. :smiley:

Yes I am a fan of the Aladdin lamps so to give a comparison, here is a short video (made by Aladdin of course.)

The supply of mantles I purchased in case there was a Y2K disaster ran out several years ago and I had not even thought much about the Aladdins (which have become decorations) until “The Big Oil Lantern Thread !” was revived.

Like the mantles for the Coleman White Gas Lanterns, the Aladdin Mantles are very fragile after their first use and eventually get holes in them and need to be replaced, but the Aladdin Mantles are hard to find and very expensive compared to the Coleman Mantels.

shedding some light on the aladdin mantle lamps

Are those Thorium mantles?

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There is thorium in the mantles yes. Enough to easily pick up with a Geiger counter (I do the demonstration in the school where I work as a teaching assistent).

New to oil lamps here, just recently I’ve reading about non-led lighting lanterns (gas, gasoline, oil) and found them very interesting. Technologies that were already perfected for decades but discontinued in the modern times.

I’m looking for a compact oil lantern and trying to decide between the Feuerhand baby 276 and the Dietz 76.

I might not give it much hard use but do want something well built and durable that I can take to camping and work reliably. I read that dietz lanterns are now made overseas and are sold for mainly decorative purposes rather than functionality, meanwhile the feuerhand are still made in Germany.

Also, they don’t sell clear paraffin oil around here and only yellow tinted kerosene, would that work just as good for fuel?