Below are some of the oil lanterns & lamps in my collection:
Here are some details about these:
& 2. replica vintage marine navigation lanterns
#3. an old Coach oil lantern, ( unknown date)
#4. common Kerosene Hurricane lantern.
& 6. these table oil lamps was passed down to my from my grandmother.
7 & 8. These two original Beacon Train lamps, were given to me from my Grandfather, who used to work with the CNR Railway in the 1930 - 40s. These two came from Caboose # 860 of the Newfoundland Railway, ( CNR Line in eastern Canada) these were used as Caboose lights until the cabooses were converted over to electric lights.
9. was a vintage Train lantern recovered by my grandfather from an old Steam Train wreck that happened in Newfoundland on the main CNR line back in the 1930s. It was found 20 years after in remains of the wreckage. it has âCNRâ embosed on the glass globe, and date of manufacturer is unknown.
Neat collection and I love the fact that several are multi generation family owned items. With the frequency of families moving that has become unusual. Do you have any of the old bright oil lamps such as the circular wick lights or the wick and mantle combination oil lamps like the Aladdin?
This is getting a very cosy subforum with all the antique stuff
I have only two kerosine lanterns, but they are not the least. I could not find the other small one but here I do show the most relevant kerosine lamp of all times (IMHO of course ;-) ) : the Feuerhand 276 BABY special, mit sturmkappe, Schott Mainz Jena'er glass, works in any weather condition:
Left to right, a whale oil lamp without its works and what appears to be a simple Middle Eastern lamp.
The whale oil lamp is a family heirloom. The note is in my motherâs handwriting. It is from her side of the family. I donât know whether it was bought by her parents as an antique or whether it was has been passed down since it was current, the early 19th Century, in her motherâs family. The works are missing. I suppose is was an Argand lamp. Perhaps it was converted to kerosine or electric incandescence and the conversion became obsolete or broke and was discarded. The inside is still wet from being washed.
The other is from some yard sale of flea market. It appears to me to be a very small and simple oil candle-like light from the Middle East or Southern Asia, complete except for wick and oil.
(The bottle with the candle and the vase are my work, in reduction fired stoneware. The salt and pepper shakers are Delfts, Holland earthenware.)
Thanks to this new section on BLF I know of the existance of whale oil lamps :-)
Nice glazes Fritz! (I made stoneware glazes for a while as a hobby, but never experimented with reduction firing the oven. Since 10 years ago I don't have a workshop for it anymore)
From my reading I get the impression that wick type lamps were relatively low power typically, in the few CP to 200 CP/Lumens range. Only designs like the center draft circular wick and Aladdin designs got any where near the 200 Lumens output while flat and round wick lamps were typically closer to the 10 to 30 Lumens range. Is this correct?
The most powerful wick type lamps were probably those used in Lighthouse lanterns. From some pictures I have seen it looks like they often used multiple circular wicks of increasing size from the center in a center draft arrangement. These would be 19th century lamps I presume? Any one have any references or photos of such lamps and their outputs or information on the highest power lamps prior to the center draft circular wick designs?
A circular wick type was invented by Argand. It apparently eliminated most of the smoke from whale oil lamps. In Norway, I saw old kerosine lamps with flat and round wicks. The ones with round wicks had much smaller bulges around the flame in their chimneys, which looks as though they worked much better. The wick itself was actually flat, but it was fed upward throw a circular hole that bent it in a circle.
Lamps are incandescent like simple electric lights, so the key to efficiency is temperature. The chimney makes it brighter by drawing air. But if there is too much air, there are no carbon particles, like a gas stove. It is the carbon lamp black in the flame that radiates the light. Then there needs to be enough air and heat farther up in the flame to burn away the lamp black, or everything nearby will turn black and absorb the light, like the old part of the Norwegian farm house or a lamp chimney when the lamp has been turned too high. The flow needs to be laminar. If the wick is too high or there is too much flow for any other reason, the flow becomes turbulent, and then there are spots in it where carbon escapes. That happens to non-smokeless candles if the wicks are not trimmed in time. In smokeless candles the wick bends over and burns to the proper length at the edge of the flame where there is both air and heat.
Way back in the 70âs we had the 3 day week. Itâs a long and political story that lead to the Winter of Discontent in 1978. Thereâs a ton of stuff to read if you want to.
Basically, the 3 day week means the lights went off, not many people had televisions, cooking wasnât electric, heating and cooking were gas.
So we lit Tilley, Vapalux, or other old paraffin lamps and heaters instead. The most famous clean burning paraffin heater being the Aladdin.
Every petrol station here had an Esso Blue pump for filling cans with clean burning paraffin (clean kerosene) for our lamps, heaters and stoves. And as it is today, itâs an up yours to anyone telling me I have to pay âthe manâ to have to cook and heat on domestic supply.
This Vapalux belonged to my dad who was a vet (animals not Vietnam). As a child I helped him deliver calves, find lost sheep and lambs, watch piglets being born, and light us playing Monopoly or cards round the table at night.
And here it is hissing and glowing to this day. Always a pleasing thing is this lantern
Over in the US you still have Miles Stair, an old connection of mine for importing CountyComm stuff to the UK, an Endtimer, survivalist, and an enthusiast of this wonderful old tech.
Any UK residents can find a similar love for all things lighting, heating, cooking at Base-camp. There are two people (Mike and Amanda) who run it, husband and wife, massively knowledgeable on all of it. If you phone and want to chat, make a big mug of tea and have biscuits in your pocket, these chats can take literally hours. Proper old school people, I love them.
Wow, since this thread is de-necroâd. This is an oil lamp from the 1800âs 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 50âs I believe). All original globes and chimneys
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.
