G'day all, I noticed this lamp on Ebay. The seller had $185 plus $20 in postage but offers were accepted. I offered $140 and the seller accepted. What do you think? Am I crazy for paying so much, should I shut my Ebay account down and save myself?
Well, if you like this lamp the price is what it's worth for you. But some background information is missing about the brand, the electrification and its past as a pressure lamp? And stay with the bay, it's not their fault Matthias
That looks quite interesting. It only matters to the buyer, you have seen something that intrigued you ....... let the fettling begin. Enjoy Cheers Pete
I've bought similar but that one doesn't appeal & I'd have passed it by even for $5 but there will be loads of stuff I buy you'd probably say the same about!
@spiritburner Hi Ross, long time. As Matthias alluded to I didn't disclose all including it's past as a pressure lamp. It is a Gloria Light Co No 20 Wall Lamp. The fount hasn't been drilled. The stem has been pulled out to about 45 deg but is undamaged and should be coerced back into place with a bit of heat. It is missing the fuel/air cap. It matters not to me what is missing from the business end because I have everything I need here many times over. I think you could count on 3 fingers how many of these have survived. There may be others with collectors that I have missed or I am unaware of. If the seller didn't accept my $145 offer, I would have paid the $185 without further ado. I'm not collecting further lamps as I have 60 or 70 still waiting to be fettled. When a possibly, once in a lifetime, lamp jumps in front of me, I'll grab it if I can.
Michael, thanks. I was truly surprised when I realised it had been sitting on ebay for 3 weeks and hadn't been bought. I don't check ebay anymore because I have so many lamps to attend. I find myself broke more than often too, so even if I did look I can't afford to buy much. As I said, I'm often broke. When I saw this lamp I thought may have to pay $200 odd including postage. I sat pondering scratching my chin and decided the lamp was important enough to me for me to hit up one of my kids for a loan. I chose the youngest daughter, sadly she is 40 this year, and within minutes I had a receipt of a bank transfer for the money. The kicker is, my daughter told me that if I try and give her the money back, she won't bring her family to my place, as is planned, for Christmas this year. I don't think she would get away with not coming. Her husband loves to fish and put out crab pots. My front yard is on the water and it is a terrific place to fish and catch mud crabs.
@Matty I steer away from eBay too, except for spare parts. I haven’t bought a lantern on eBay for several years now but have bought my most interesting pieces during this time via other means. For example, I bought a Bialaddin T10 earlier this month via an online forum. We made the deal quickly in about 3 messages over 10 minutes, and they dropped it off at my house at no extra cost when they drove the approx. 400 km to visit relatives who live close by. That to me is a much better process than a long tedious auction with inflated postage charges.
Michael, I had a rather large shipment of lamps come just before Christmas. 289KGs was the combined weight of the two crates the lamps were shipped in. So, I have a lot of lamps on backlog. I have other lamps in the USA that should be here in the next few months too. Previous to the lamps arriving, I had started to wonder just how many lamps I really needed. I try to keep my lamps to a minimum by only collecting one example if at all possible. Sometimes cheap lamps come up and I can't let them go. Generally though, I will use them as swap or sale stock. Just a couple of days ago I came to an agreement with a member of this forum. He had 3 lamps he wanted to move and I was interested in them. I was happy to add a couple of extra lamps to make sure the other bloke was happy. Having said that, I swapped two lamps for 6 or 7 in return prior to Christmas. I wasn't really sure if I wanted to let the lamps go but the collector that wanted my lamps made it worth my time and I was very happy in the end, as I believe, so was he. So yeah, it is possible to attain lamps without shopping on ebay. One thing I noticed whilst visiting ebay a couple of times in the last few days is, the market seems to have bottomed. I see many lamps that are not being sold at prices that are half of what they were getting a couple of years ago. The only reason I went to ebay was I am needing to buy this and that as I set up my nickelling operation. How I saw the Lux lamp I posted here not long ago, I'm not sure. I remember going down a page reasonably rapidly and went past the Lux but something in the photo stuck out so I went back and sure enough, the burner was there. Despite not really wanting anymore lamps, I felt that the lamp was too good an opportunity to let go.
@Matty - there's a blue shade among the lantern parts on that crate that looks absolutely stunning! I don't know what it's even meant to fit but I'd love to see that on a lamp of some sort - it's so gorgeous!
Colin, I was actually embarrassed by that shade sitting there. I had a feeling most wouldn't like it. I really like the shade. I got it on an Ebay auction for $0.99 I can't afford to buy original shades so I get what I ca when I can. Living in Australia makes things difficult because despite millions of Aladdins and pressure lamps being sold here, there are never many around for sale. When they are, I can't afford them for the price usually asked. Collecting table lamps can certainly cost you that bit extra because of the shades. I have a couple or three of Nulite donut lamps. You can see one of them on the unopened box. The shades for them must have been tiny. I can't find anything to fit them yet they are illustrated with a shade. One of the shades in the cabinet is a Nagel Chase shade. I didn't know it until after I bought it and saw it in a Nagel Chase catalogue. Any guesses which one?
That half frosted globe is NC and a pretty rare piece. I also saw an artichoke shade up there. They were used on some wick lamps but also by Sunshine safety on the Nulite model 10 and some of their later table lamps. They are not at all common. I traded one out a few years back for a Nagel Chase pendant lamp. Gives you some idea what it was worth to one US collector. If that's an original it's a real gem. ::Neil::
You will all know of my fondness for lampshades and I’m with Colin, that blue one is stunning! Which lamp would it be for Matty?
Neil, yes it is an original Sunshine shade. I bought the lamp off the family that originally bought the lamp. After it was used for the last time it was placed in 'cotton wool' and stored in the attic. The plating on the lamp looks like it was done yesterday, it is in astonishingly good condition. Like you, I have a number of Nagel Chase and then of course Wizard Light Co lamps and have been lucky enough to find 5 or 6 of the half frosted globes. Jean, yes, I am aware of your fondness for shades. To be honest, I'm well pleased that you, like Colin, think the shade is as nice as you do. I don't think a shade could have a higher recommendation. I apparently was the only one that liked the shade as much as you and Colin. The auction started with a $0.99 bid and I was the only bidder. What lamp will it go on? I think there will be a lot of swapping around until I find the lamp that it most suits. As I re-commission lamps I'll try various shades out on them and see what fits best. I might even need you to be a judge for me. Jean, I remember reading something @Mackburner wrote many years ago. Original shades are hard to come by, especially for American lamps when you reside outside of America. Neil's philosophy was and I assume still is, if a non original shade fits on a lamp and looks good, that's all that matters. I totally agree. Also, I know most of the manufacturers offered their lamps with or without shade. As we can well expect, back in the day most households would have spare shades from a lamp that had died. Being able to purchase a lamp without a shade would have allowed more people to more easily afford to purchase a new lamp in the first place. One can never be sure that a lamp was ever adorned by a shade that the manufacturer offered. The manufacturers main wish was that a lamp was bought - duh, obvious I know but that was just the first step to profitability. Selling a lamp was just the first way the manufacturers profited but I don't think the main way. The really profitable part was replacement generators and mantles. So, once a lamp was bought, the ongoing revenue reaped by the manufacturers was where the manufacturers made hay. What I say bears out even further when you think companies like Coleman had teams of repair men that travelled the country setting up shop at a local hardware store and staying a few days or a week repairing lamps for free. The only cost was replacement parts. I can imagine someone that lived out of town, once their lamp was repaired and back in working order, they would take home with them a dozen generators (perhaps more depending on how many Coleman lamps they had) and dozens of mantles. Clearly, it was profitable to Coleman to provide a free repair so he could then sell the replacement parts at a pretty decent mark up. Recently, I found that Collins Bro's of Australia had a mobile service. You could just ring them and they would come and fix your lamp's. I think I have a photo of their van here somewhere. Collins Bro's were the Gloria Australia hollow wire system lamps installer. I imagine they would have been on contract to keep lamps in working order for a lot of buildings and households that had many multiple lamps. Spare parts, that was where the real money was. Man, I babble on, I can never just post a few words, sorry about that.
Matty, it sound (and looks) like you are assembling an amazing collection. And with fishing close by - it sounds pretty good!
Fair Dinkum? I'm about 5 minutes drive to Victoria Point once I get onto the mainland. You are more than welcome anytime. My front yard as taken from the verandah. I have the odd nice lamp but nothing like the lamps that many, many others have. Then, the lamps I collect aren't in everyone's interest, the hollow wires and table lamps. I realised not all that long ago that I had all of a sudden found a niche in wall or bracket lamps and gravity and donut lamps. Well, niche is an overstatement but I all of a sudden had more than I realised. One area I'd like to improve my collection in is chandeliers. I have a Coleman PQ and a Nulite Model 18. Many other collectors have them too. I have added another one, a Nagel Chase that I am yet to fettle. I am missing the decorative brass bit that is between the two lamp heads of the lamp with the twin burners. I don't anticipate that to be too hard to find as the same thing was used on other types of lighting.
I sat here today wondering what I would find on Ebay if I had a proper look. The Gloria wall lamp and the LUX Railway Lamp were more or less an accident. I wasn't looking for lamps. So, I wondered if it was possible to find something else of interest. The end result is, I found and bought a lamp that was in the top 3 of my wish list. It is complete, undamaged and has the globe. It is plain brass so it may have lost the original enamel or paint or, they may have come in polished brass. The catalogue I looked at doesn't mention the finish. Gloria Light Co No 6 Heavy Weather Outdoor Lamp. The image is from a 1916 catalogue.
@Matty That’s a really nice collection of shades. I’m somewhat envious as I haven’t been able to find shades in good condition on my many forays for lamps. What shades I have come across usually are in pretty sad condition with cracks and chips rendering them not suitable. Having said all that, I recently got a beauty from Outback boy. Cheers Pete
Pete, For good reasons, it has long been speculated that war time brass drives claimed a lot of the lamps in Australia up until the mid 1940's. That is why they are scarce in Australia. As a kid in the 60's I remember blokes in trucks coming around every now and then collecting scrap metal, I suspect a lot of lamps fell victim to that as well. I suppose a lot of people simply threw out their perfectly good lamp shades as they couldn't see any reason as to why to keep the shades. Of course accidental breakage would be another factor. Considering how many shades must have been sold in Australia from say 1900 to 1950 it must be a very small percentage of those shades that have survived until the present day. There are two or three Aladdin type shades on ebay at the moment. Sometimes you will only see two or three a year that appear on ebay.
@Matty I reckon you’re spot on about the war drives for scrap metal. I remember in the 50s living in the country South Aussie the pressure table lamps supplemented our home lighting. I wonder what happened to these lamps, probably chucked out when the mains power was connected in the mid-ish 60s. We did have a thing called a ”Freelite”, basically a windmill turning a generator charging batteries that, on windy times, gave us 32VDC power for lighting, the radio and mum’s washing machine. Our fridge was kerosene and Mum made awesome meals in a Metters wood stove. My Dad and I were just talking about that this morning. (Dad’s just going on to 92 in a weeks time). Certainly different times, however we never thought it hard or felt disadvantaged compared with the city folk. Cheers Pete
Pete, Wow, that is some achievement by your dad. I was saddened today to hear of Kirk Douglas' death. He was 102 or 3. Quirks Victory and prior to them Quirks Engineering did those electric windmill set ups. They did them for many decades. I didn't check but from memory, about 1950 is when the government went all out to provide electricity to as many households as possible. It cost a lot of dough but it also employed a lot of people. Just speculating, I think a lot more lamps may have survived if Australian homes had basements or attics like they do in the UK or the US. Lamps would be put in those attics and basements and only ever be found again when the owner passed away and people like the grandchildren discover them while going through the grand parents house and belongings. That is how I got my, complete with shade, Sunshine Safety lamp. The grandkids cleaning out pops home after he died. Until 5 years ago, I didn't really know pressure lighting existed. I had never heard of Tilley or Coleman and certainly none of the less prominent manufacturers. I grew up in Sydney where the electricity was stable so emergency lighting wasn't really needed. We did have kerosene heaters and those heaters produced a smell that when you smell it 50 plus years later, it immediately takes you back to that bygone time.
I forgot to put the photo of the Gloria No 6 that I just bought in. Lux, Gloria, Gloria in a couple of days. Seriously, what would the odds be of that occurring on such rare lamps? You'd be lucky to find 3 Coleman CQ's in a few days in Australia.
