Posted 6 years ago
kwqd
(1122 items)
I benefited from another collector who is downsizing and got these three oil lamps for $25 for all three. All are fully functional. I haven't done the work, yet, to clean them and verify that they are parts correct. I am NOT an experienced oil lamp collector. My original goal was only to acquire about 20 oil lamps, two for each room of my six room house, plus a backup for each room to be used when refilling lamps low on fuel (in addition to the two Dietz Jupiters with a 75 hour burn time I have for areas I want to keep from freezing but not have to check daily). I am still under 30 lamps, I think! Maybe. I also got three globes in this deal, two apparently original to the lamps.
The Giant Co. lamp (left) has a Plume & Atwood Thomaston Conn #2 Eagle burner on it. Guessing that one is not original.
Not sure what type of burner should be on a Duncan & Miller lamp (center), but it has an old burner stamped "White Flame Light Co. Grand Rapids Mich" and "Made in USA" on the wick knob. I also have the tallest version of this lamp and know where to buy the other finger lamp that is one up in size from this one. Debating if I should buy it. It is so big that, full of oil and with the shade on it, using it as finger lamp would be iffy.
The Scovill lamp (right) appears to be correct as it has the Queen Anne #2 burner.
I actually got lucky and found three dozen new old stock Eagle burners in the original boxes that have blank knobs. Ready for the apocalypse.
I also recently found a new old stock P&A oil lamp with original wick and instructions stuffed inside the oil reservoir and also my third example of the Duncan and Miller #55 quarter block oil lamps and will do a post about both.
Thanks for loving my "new" oil lamps!
officialfuel
Brunswick
Johnsmith
fortapache
blunderbuss2
ttomtuckert
EJW-54
Vynil33rpm
vetraio50
Thanks for loving my lamps, Roycroftbooksfromme1!
Thanks for loving my lamps buckethead and AnythingObscure!
Thanks buckethead and worthit2!
Thanks for liking my old oil lamps Ilikethings! Not sure if you re-liked this, Thomas, but thanks to you, too. I did go back and buy the third Duncan and Miller so have all three sizes that this came in.
Ugh! Bad weather here today with potential power outages predicted, so I decided to take on getting my Giant lamp squared away, which I did not expect to be much work, but I was so very wrong.
First, the Plume & Atwood burner appeared to be working but I found there were a couple of dead spots on the rollers that are supposed to advance the wick, just worn out, I guess. I might let it soak in some solvent for awhile, but do not think it is recoverable. I replaced it with an identical, new P&A burner from my stock. Down to seven new old stock burners.
Next, I found it very (Very) difficult to unscrew and remove the burner from the lamp body. Apparently, whatever fuel was used in this lamp left a very gummy residue which almost cemented the burner to the lamp. I finally got it free but had to use rubbing alcohol to get the threaded brass insert in the lamp body cleaned up. There was also quite a bit if green corrosion. It all eventually cleaned up well.
The I stuck my finger inside the bowl and found the inside was coated in the same sticky residue. There was also a wad of the stuff in the bottom of the bowl along with looked like wood splinters but may have been petrified parts on an old wick. More rubbing alcohol, a good long soak, followed by about 45 minutes of scrubbing with an improvised cleaning tool to reach the gunk in the bottom. I think I got almost all of the residue out of the bowl.
Finally, the fill cap is missing the waxed paper seal that once lived in the top of the cap, but it seals pretty well with out it. I will eventually cut a new seal for it, when I find some material to do so.
So, what I thought was going to be a minor cleanup, turned into about two and a half hours of work, not counting further attempts to recover the original burner. Good to go for another 50 years.
Belated thanks to Ilikethings and Johnsmith!