I bought this from a very nice lady on Gumtree who told me her parents used it during the power cuts in the 70s. It had a badly cracked globe that survived the journey in one piece... inside the lantern! More on that later. I washed it down with warm soapy water, replaced the washers, polished the air-nuts, added a Butterfly mantle and filled it with clean kero. Even without a globe its solid as a rock and putting out a good light. 315s are still my favourite Willis & Bates by a large margin. In my humble opinion they represent the apex of W&B lantern design, notwithstanding the 320 which for me went too far when they copied the central frame securing ring from the Tilley 246B. Its sitting on the counter, whispering away happily as I type. Wonderful! The pre-heater cup really is in tip-top condition. It also has the shiniest frame screws I've ever seen! Despite the inevitable ring of black enamel loss, the hood is very clean! So, the globe that came with it... This really has seen better days and when I got it out of the frame, it creaked and the joints were making an ominous cracking sound! With nothing to lose I washed it, dried it and covered all the joints with superglue, inside and out. I left this for two days and then used a new craft knife blade to scrape away the excess. It now rings like a bell and is firm enough to use in my electric 315. Obviously I couldn't trust it in the real 315 as it would probably just shatter!
If I remember correctly the dat is on the bottom? There is a series of “dots” on the bottom, big ones and small ones, big ones are years and small ones are the months. Now I could be thinking of an older lantern, say the 310 or 315. Anyway, check the bottom.
There are dots on the bottom... 6 small ones, but no large ones, therefore it was made in June but you cant tell which year!
I knew the glass was broken before I bought it but at the price I paid, it eas definitely still worth it! It ran for 4 hours this evening without any problems at all.
