Hi fellow collectors. I'd written in this forum a long time ago but was not active at all in the recent years. Today I'm coming back with a request for your help. I'd purchased a vapour light some weeks ago and I'm in the process to get it running again. Upon close inspection I found out that it is a gasoline vapour light, made by Hugo Pollak, Vienna around 1900. Extensive searches on the web only revealed some ads in the "Innsbrucker Nachrichten" newspaper between 1896 and 1906. Anyway, being in contact with very experienced collectors I got some more information and patent hints. There is one more posting in this forum about Hugo Pollak but there aren't any more details on that lamp or its history either. I've cleaned the lamp in the meantime and put it back together. However, I'm still missing a suitable gallery with mantle-holder screw and brass mesh. After that, it shouldn't be too difficult to find a correct chimney. Now my question is if someone would have a suitable gallery (similar to the image below) with an inside diameter of abt. 27.5mm to fit over the burner pipe. Your help would be very much appretiated. Thanks very much. I've made many detailed pictures throughout the cleaning process and will provide a picture gallery when I'm done. Here some pictures:
Hi again Fellows. After a long time of try and error, many tests and experiments and with the help of some very nice folks I was able to purchase a gallery from an old French lamp. I didn't fit my burner tube right away since it is a differnt make but with some fiidling I could make it fit. Then I tinkered around to make a brass mesh and the copper cap from a pipe fitting to hold it. Finally I installed an Aladdin Upright mantle and today I performed the sucessful test run. I'm quite pleased with the outcome. ;-)) Here below some pictures. I'll make picture gallery with many more detailed pictures as I find the time. Thanks for looking. Erwin.
A very worthwhile effort Erwin, and a great piece of working history. Are you using gasoline or Coleman fuel (or equivalent) ?
Hi guys. Thanks very much for your comments. I had to fiddle around with that lamp quite a bit since I had no idea about sich kind of vapor lamp burners. I use Wasbenzin from The Netherlands which is a purified gasoline, probably very similar to Coleman fuel. I'd seen the picture of the other Pollak lamp but I have no information about it at all. Unfortunately Google didn't bring up more interesting information. The only things I found were the newspaper ads as described in my first post. Does anybody know whom the other lamp belongs to? It would be great to see that one lit up again too. Thanks, Erwin.
Hi again. For all the picture hunters: I've made a picture gallery with some detailed pictures of the restoration process: Hugo Pollak, Vienna; Gasoline vapor lamp, ca. 1900 Happy fettling. Erwin.
Hi Erwin, I own the other lamp, the one Ian shared in about 2015. I purchased it off our form of eBay, trademe, here in New Zealand. I haven't ever lit it as I have no experience with these. Posted here.
