Has anyone heard of a company in Hull (England) that manufactured hot blast Kerosene lanterns? I'm aware that this is a pressure lamp forum, but I thought I would ask anyways. There's a lantern in the collection here with an oval metal tag stamped "SEARCH LAMP WORKS HULL" and "THE ZEBRA ENGLISH MADE". Any information about this company would be very welcome. All I'm aware of is that Hull was very heavily bombed in the Second World War, and this lantern would most likely date to that time period, if not before. Chris W - Winnipeg, Canada
Hi Chris Try this forum link to post your query as they have a wick section: http://www.be-back-later.com Regards, Jeremy
Thank you Jeff and Jeremy for your reply. I have put the question to the Guild, and will await an answer from them. In my recent searches, I've identified other manufacturers in Hull - mostly connected with marine-type lighting. No luck with the museum search so far, but I'm not finished yet. Will try and locate an English non-pressure lantern collector or club. Thanks again guys.
Hello Chris, if you check out the links page on the Guild's website, there is a section for flat wick hurricane lanterns.
Very good Jeff. Unable to reduce images from 300 dpi to the 72 dpi required for the Guild's Q & A site. Managed to attach them to an email and send them off to a individual who answered my query, though. Even tried the Forum's image optimizer, but the resulting image afer an hour's worth of fiddling about, was a bit bigger than a postage stamp. Thanks again.
When I check it, it's 300dpi. Not that the resolution matters in this case. It's rather the image itself that is the trouble. You should post a picture of the whole lantern at the Guild, Chris. ...you should also swap that crappy Nikon D40 for a real camera - a Canon...
If you have image problems on the Guild site you can send them to me and I can tweak them and post them for you in the Guild Q&A. Max image file size is half what we have here so they really do have to be compressed to get any sort of decent sized image on screen. I know only too well how difficult the learning curve for image management can be. Took me years to get comfortable with the concepts. Not easy to help either because different image programs do the job in different ways some of which are pretty obscure to find. What image program do you have? Cannon? Well when my Olympus dies that is where I shall go next but for our purposes most cameras do the job well enough. I found that a tripod matters more than the camera. Indoor pictures in auto mode can mean a slow shutter speed and a blured image. Use a tripod and the delay timer for nice slow and sharp images. A steady image can be tweaked to be better than it needs to be for a web site. ::Neil::
Gentlemen - I have sent 3 compressed jpeg's to the Guild secretary, to be posted on the Q & A section under the title: "Search Lamp Works, Hull (England)". The D40"s alright - I've hauled it through many a northern swamp and across kilometers of frozen wilderness... good enough for fieldwork and report writing. There is always a better "somthing" out there I should be using... You would love my tents! they are always an abundant source of humor for some of the crews! The lantern was found at one of the local Flea Markets (the source of 90% of my lantern collection) from a guy who most likely brought it up from the US. It has a layer of Blue brush paint on it and is missing the original globe. Keeping both the lantern and the D40.
Of course you shall keep 'em. Nikon is one of the best manufacturer of Cameras, no doubts about that. It's all about your own likings. Absolutely true. A tripod is the most essential thing. With that, no flash and the correct white balance, you can't go wrong. Mind you, with most modern DSLR's you can take good hand held pictures inside the house, since they nowadays can use really, really high ISO without too much noice in the picture.
So it is - I've just learnt something new about one of my image apps. If I copy & past a web image direct into the app it is rendered at 72dpi - if I save the image first & then open with the same app it renders at the original resolution. I used the first method before hence my incorrect assumption.
That make sence. Your image app is trying to get a perfect web-based image, so it will atleast initially "try to fool you" when checking any picture whatsoever. If I want an unspoiled information - as far as it is possible- I firstly must save the file posted directly to my computer so no other program will mess around with it. That's where you get those wonderful informations, like which camera was in use, which shutter speed, aperture value etc. And also the date when it was taken, which can be quite amusing sometimes. It is surprisingly how often an image at e.g. CCS (or any other fora), is claimed to be taken "This Christmas", or similar, even though the EXIF-file says it was made three years ago.
That could be a failure by the owner to program the thing. When our old digi camera broke I was given an old MkI Canon Ixus. Tess still uses it for her ebay pics - todays pics are dated 29/02/2000!
Hello all, I have a centre draught 'wikkie' table lamp marked 'Search' on the winder knobs. The special design wick trimmer on the lamp was patented to Sherwoods in 1925 so perhaps there is a connection there?
Greetings Mike, Sounds interesting.... All the facts that I have managed to find out in the last week are: - General form of lantern has been around since the 1890's, though I doubt that this example is that old. - Style resembles that of German-made "wickies" of the 1940's, and I would hazard a guess & say that this example might date from around that time. - I have had great difficulty locating any UK "wickie" collections or clubs that arn't entirely for Lamps - I'm thinking there is a language issue. Q: Kerosene is known as Paraffin, But is a "Hurricane Lantern" known by some other terminology? I will now post an image or the said wickie - again my apologies for inquiring about a wickie on a pressure lantern forum.. but this is the open forum section, and you never know what a person can learn, or who they might meet! There are 7 dead flame types in the collection here, and this example is, at present, a mystery - you have to like a good mystery now and then!
Here is an image of the lantern - sort of harmless looking isn't it? the hideous blue brush paint kept me from wanting to aquire it, but the "significant other's" favorite color is Blue, so home to the Lantern Room it came. Now I'm compelled to classify it. I guess that's sort of what I do for a living.
Hello Chris, the link below will show how to make contact with the Historic Lighting Club in the UK., Jeff. http://www.parkers-paraffinalia.co.uk/information.htm
Thank you very much for the link, Jeff. .....Yes David, I understand. They just don't have that pressurized florescent thing going for them, do they? There's just something fascinating about having a brilliant White mantle hissing away a few centimeters from a tank of very flammable fuel under pressure..... ..... I can just stare at them for hours!
Very true - but in reality, which would be safer if knocked over - the WC hurricane lantern or the pressure one? 8)
