@podbros @Fireexit1 The burners has been more or less complete when I got them. I have made some mantle forks and holders, but otherwise complete. I recon most of these burners/lamps were top notch at that time period, and probably expensive.These incandescent burners were made to replace and to improve the regular oil and kerosene wick lamp burners. The common people had probably to endure lesser effective lighting. ………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………... 13. Bec Regina ...These two Regina burners were manufactured by the company "Société Anonyme D´incandescence par L´alcool" ("La Regina"), Paris, probably around 1900. The burners Regina BB and No. 2 are said to give a light output of 35 and 50 CP, and works with a pilot pre heat flame as the original Schuster & Baer 1895 patent. Two valid patents for this burner were granted to the Regina burner constructor, Martin Posno in 1899/1900. Year 1900 patents of Martin Posno, Paris ….
...just 3 more to go … 14. Bec Callophane Another French spirit burner based on the Schuster & Baer's patent from 1895, the Bec Callophane by M. Engelfred and "Societe D´eclairage Callophane". The first reference I was able to find for this burner/lamp is from 1896, hence probably the first French S&B patent burner made. The very first Callophane burners were made for lamp bases with a 14 line collar thread. However, this lamp has an integrated glass tank with a Callophane burner. On this lamp there is a bayonet fitting special designed for this lamp tank and burner One advantage of this type of burner is that you can use a traditional, regular gas burner head, which is much cheaper to manufacture. It is said to give a light amount of 60 CP and gives overall a very good performance. Even though the burner has a patent number on the burner, I couldn´t find any.
15. Decamps & Cie burner This is a Decamps & Cie burner, but probably the origin of this burner is a patent from Auguste Lecomte in 1902. I don't have a lot of information about Decamps & Cie, manufacturers or resellers, or both? An interesting detail of this burner are the double horizontal jet holes. By adjusting the valve knob, you can open one or both or turn the burner off completely. Nice design but that goes for most French burners/lamps. Here are two lamps with that burner, one nickel plated and one in pure brass.
Stunning collection. All in very good to new condition annd all working. Something else to look out for on my junk shop trawls...
@Fireexit1 Yes, going a bit outside your comfort zon, may bring exciting and marvelous lighting appliances, you didn´t know existed. This will be the last burner/lamp entry in this thread, at least for now. 16. Bec Auer. This burner originally comes from Germany …. Auer v.Welsbach and Deutsche Gasglühlicht AG (DEGEA), but my burner comes from France and is probably a SF Auer (Société française Auer) burner. Works also according to the Schuster & Baer patent from 1895 with an auxiliary flame to heat the burner. Around 50-60 CP and probably from 1896 to 1900. In a Swedish 1896 wholesaler catalogue I found this Auer burner.
Thank you for the exhibition Conny it is fascinating how something that looks like an ordinary wick lamp on the outside can be so packed with the technology of the day. The lower burner essentially constantly pre-heating the fuel was an eye-opener. Chris
Hi @Conny C ... Thanks again for taking the time to show and describe these mantle specials I wanted to ask you about No. 14 and if it is quite stable in use? ... It looks a little top heavy? It's almost like a perfume bottle ?? .. I really like it !!!
@podbros Yeah…. a big perfume bottle . I had anticipated a small lamp when buying this lamp, but was amazed by the size, when I received it. Here a comparison image with an Akron 121 Utility lamp and also a regular matchbox. /Conny
Have just caught up with this thread, amazing. Thanks @Conny C for the marvellous images and the detailed information, much to appreciate and learn.
Dear Conny, I come back to your subject N°15. Here is some information about Mr Auguste Lecomte and A Dcamps & Cie. They mainly come from the National Library of France "Gallica" through the magazine "Le Chauffeur" from 1897 to 1907 in the "le technologist" sections and the pages of advertisements where the Lecomte burner with pure denatured alcohol is presented throughout the year 1904. The document giving information on the activities of the house A Décamps comes from the Paris museum collections on a drawing of 03.09.1892 The house A Décamps was specialized in: Turning on metals. Spinning on metals (brassware) Print making. At 2 passage St Sébastien in Paris, located at the back of the courtyard in a 2-storey industrial building. (see attached document) There was a move at the beginning of February 1905 to 172 quai Jemmapes in Paris (le Chauffeur of 1.02.1905). It was the old address of the Camis printing works. Mr. Auguste Lecomte was an arts and manufacturing engineer. He was the engineer of the house A Decamps. He designed and patented all the lamps and burners manufactured at A Décamps et Cie. I have an inexplosive A decamps & Cie A Lecomte lamp for which I will open a topic here. There are several very interesting articles in 1902 on which A Lecomte explains all the interests of the Alcoho-Stellane and its "special Stellar beak". The alcoho-Stellane was a fuel based on Denatured Alcohol and Benzol for a ratio of 50% / 50% or 1/1. He also worked with the Luchaire house and filed several co-patents for incandescent lighting systems: Luchaire / A Lecomte. On July 31, 1919 he filed a patent for an electric switch in the name of A Lecomte et Cie. I add an image of my Lecomte "BB" mouthpiece in NOS identical to that of the patent. Best regards, Titoo.
Conny, A large advertisement for the Boler burner can be found at https://bibliotheques-specialisees....65653/0001/v0001.simple.selectedTab=otherdocs It appears that the burner was intended for use with a fuel called Lusol. The 1910 Didot-Bottin commercial directory shows Boler claiming to be the only company with the right to sell lamps using the Denayrouse designs. Right below the Boler listing, there is anther by Croisier wi also stated its products used the Denayrouse designs. Both listings were under the category Lampes au Lusol. Recently I acquired a German made kerosene burner that was private labeled to a small French company that wanted to use a custom fuel. The fuel was the combination of kerosene and alcohol. The company lasted less than five years. My take away is that several French companies tried to develop unique fuels in the quest of brighter lamps. All the best, Fred
Hi Fred, nice hearing from you! Yes the Lusol fuel was connected to the (Denayrouze) Boler burner, as in my post of the Denayroze burners and that Boler ad .... There were also other French manufacturer making their own fuel mix as the Harle burner, here called "Bec Benzol" using the Benzol fuel .... ...and the South American Denayrouze burner version "Alcoluz" or "Comalumbra", with the fuel called "Denayrouzine" ..... So I think there was an intension of finding an optimal fuel mix for these burners, with gasoline, alcohol and other components as turpentine etc. I also think these companies was selling their own labelled fuel mixes at a pretty high cost, just for making money. In my own experience and what I think is the most important fuel component here, is gasoline! I think all these burners could use just gasoline with a good result! Please Fred, it would be interesting seeing the German burner of yours, either here on forum or in a e-mail to me! /Conny
Conny, Here are two pictures of the burner I mentioned. It is a standard Alliance kerosene wick burner by C. F. Kindermann. Yet it has the name Alcoolucine on the knob. When I searched for the company Alcoolucine, one document I came across was a 1903 article from the Bulletin de la Société d'encouragement pour l'industrie nationale, Volume 101, Part 2. My poor translation is: Appliances burning alcohol in a liquid state A. LIGHTING APPLIANCES a.) Lamps with wicks such as kerosene lamps. For the first time, these lamps were presented by inventors concerned with promoting the liquids that could burn in them rather than the appliances themselves. For example, the French Company of Alkolumine in Paris (company principals are the sons and son-in-law of Mister Chalmel) uses carburized alcohol at 25% benzine. Mister Villeminot of Paris uses of Alcoolucine which is carburized alcohol at 50% by a mixture of equal parts of benzol and Russian kerosene with a small quantity of naphthalene. Misters Blondel and Hincelin use Luminogen which is .40% carburized alcohol with benzol and heavy hydrocarbons. Mister Roy in Paris uses of carburized alcohol with 54% benzol. The French Juhle Burner company in Paris, which uses of carburized alcohol at 30 to 35% of a mixture of benzine and petrol, makes a lamp burner where the upper part of the cotton wick ends in a socket in which is placed a strip of silicated asbestos. The night light of Mister Deullin of Paris which uses 24 per cent carburized alcohol with a mixture of benzine, light hydrocarbons and naphthalene offers a lamp with the smallest intensity which has appeared in the 0 to 15 candlepower category in competition. b.) Wick lamps with an Auer sleeve on top The idea of placing a Auer sleeve [Burner gallery?] above a round wick burning liquid alcohol like petroleum, i.e. in the presence of two air flows, seems to have come from two German inventors - Mr. Lehmann and Mr. Achner. The lamp offers the advantage of requiring only one point of lighting. As soon as the wick is ignited, it is capped with a sleeve and the mantle becomes incandescent. However, the lamp is difficult to adjust the variations in height that the circle of flame resulting in inequalities in the lighting of the mantle. It sometimes happens that a portion of the mantle is covered with lampblack and presents a dark spot on the mantle. The consumption of these lamps, like all domestic lamps burning denatured alcohol, is slightly higher than that of gas lamps. The company of Schuster and Baer of Berlin and Paris, which is the licensee of the Lehmann burner patent, uses a burner on its Réforme lamp that is made according to the principles set out above. The lamp also includes a rack which raises the gallery and mantle above the wick and makes it easy to liht with a match. In other lamps, the gallery and mantle must be separated from the reservoir when lighting and there is a greater risk of breaking the mantle. An ingenious device makes it possible to lower on the wick to extinguish the lamp as two metal half-discs which come down to stop the evaporation of the alcohol. The Ehrich and Graetz lamp of Berlin, the lamp of the Société Française d'Incandescence Auer of Paris, the Meyer Kopp lamp et Cie of Paris (Emka or MK burners); the lamp Liais of Paris are all lamps with wicks covered with Auer gallery and mantle. The last two, however, carry a modification which does not appear to be essential. They are provided with a metal tube (rod?) placed following the wick surmounted by an inner recovery rod which heats the end of the wick enough for the alcohol to gasify and reach the upper part of the gallery where it burns. Alcoolucine Formation The deed dated February 24, 1902 registered with the general secretariat of the prefecture of the Somme department on March 25, 1902, pursuant to which Mr. Hermann Guttmann annuitant residing in Paris at avenue Matignon n. 11 bis formed a public limited company Alcoholucine having its registered office in Paris avenue Matignon n. 11 bis its rights to the fifteen-year patent of invention which it took on July 22, 1897 jointly with Misters Herzfeld and Beer for a process intended to increase the solubility of petroleum in alcohol. I have no idea who sold Alcoolucine's products and have not seen any mention of them in commercial directories. Fred
Fred, Thanks for your answer! There seems to be two French companies involved in that article, with similar names "Societe de L´Alkolumine" (Gustave Chalmel) and "Societe de L´Alcoolucine" (Hermann Guttmann). Both companies were active around beginning of 1900. The Alkolumine was a mix of denatured alcohol and 25 to 35 % of gasoline specially made for the "open air" flame lamps, like the Pigeon, Besnard etc. The Alcoolucine, (as on you burner knob), seems to have been a lighting fuel with a mix of denatured alcohol and kerosene. Maybe that rebranded Alliance wick kerosene burner of yours, was a try for that company to introduce their fuel mix for kerosene fed wick lamp burners. Probably a bit cheaper too, with alcohol as the main ingredient. Maybe not that successful, as the Societe de L´Alcoolucine ceases 17 Dec. 1903. /Conny
@Conny C Dear Conny, I have learned a lot from your posts. Besides being amazed at the beautiful lights, can I ask you a question: how do you get such perfect mantles? I always fail to get the perfect shape with ordinary mantles, which results in a much worse effect.
Sorry for late answer! With these French incandescent alcohol/gasoline burner lamps I have mostly used preformed rigid upright gas mantles. You can still buy some on eBay. Search for "Aladdin Upright Gas mantles". /Conny
@Conny C Thank you very much for the excellent information. "Could you please advise on the appropriate fuel types and their optimal mixing ratios?"
Sorry for late anwser @Chokoon The Callophane/Engelfred lamp is an alcohol fed lamp and use ethanol/methanol fuels. The alcohol fuel may differ from country to country and also maybe the concentration and mix. But probably most alcohol based fuel works for this type of burners. /Conny
Very nice and informative thread. These wick-incandescent mantle lamps are definitely beautiful art pieces with great technical innovations behind their designs.
Hi Jean, @Jean J I kept them coming in the part II ...... French early incandescent wick burner lamps Part II /Conny
