As a "Nagel Chaser", I came across this interesting Powerlight Match-O-Lite lamp. I particularly like the riveted fount lamps & lanterns. This lamp has many parts from Pitner as normal since Powerlight is associated with Pitner of Chicago, having Pitner family who started the company as Neil lays out in his PLC. The lamp is well marked. A Nagel Chase manufactured nickle rivetted fount with filler cap, which is also Nagel Chase & reads POWERLIGHT CO WINNIPEG. The bottom of the fount embossed MATCH-O-LIGHT TRADE-MARK. Over top of the embossing the tank ink stamped twice 1920 TABLE LAMP SPIRIT LIGHTING. Per the PLC, the lamp has a one piece cast Pitner burner of the type found on their 2001 lamp and is the hinged pivoting air tube variation style cover for pricker access. Per norm the valve control is standard well made Pitner & is a torch lighting lamp with spirit cup below the burner. Match-O-Light is designated as Powerlight lamp #119 on the PLC and 1920 Spirit Lighting as the #1920 model lamp. This is confusing to me since both are present on this lamp.. A fine old lamp I'm pleased to add to my group of Rivetted fount lamps and lanterns.
This is not listed in the PLC because I have never seen another Powerlight with that Pitner burner. My instinct is it's probably correct, given the family connection to the defunct Pitner Chicago business which likely had some remainder stock parts, but I would like to see one or two more examples to be sure they routinely used this burner before making their own 1920 type. I will however list it as the balance of probability suggests to me it's right. ::Neil::
Good Friday to all, As Neil notes; Pitner burner on this particular Powerlight is not currently known. So this lamp is not in the PLC. It bears markings of both model 119 & 1920. Nice to find new and different variations. While not the normal Pitner burner it is still one of Pitner's burner variations and likely original to this lamp. Powerlight was not a long lived company. Also, I failed to note the shade spider on this lamp and top ring are original early Nagel Chase parts. This drew me to the lamp as I have one of the early of Nagel Chase lamps which has the white riveted dome fount, same spider at it's top, cap, and it has a pump and pressure gauge. Here in the US we speak American, Spirit is not recognized as Alcohol. This threw off the listing name, as the seller thought Spirit was the name of the lamp.... perhaps Dean.
Well it's listed and illustrated now and will be in PLC 95 when I get round to publishing the next revision. ::Neil::
