Found this lantern in a local shop and it came home with me. Funny how they tend to do that. Was told by Neil (Mackburner) that it is a Gloria Model P. Original resellers decal from the short lived More Light Limited company of Vancouver B.C. Canada. Was also told that the mica is probably not original to it as the lantern has a lighting door in the frame base. Makes perfect sense to me. All things considered seems to be in fairly solid shape. Hope to eventually get to it as time permits.
You may or may not be interested in the following. I have researched this company and whilst Neil is correct, the More Light Limited company, as known by that name was short lived, the company itself was not so short lived. Robert M Moore (correct spelling) arrived in Canada from Europe in 1895. In 1905 he began the Moore Light Company. By 1909 the name of the company was R M Moore & Co. By 1911, the name would change to Robt M Moore & Co and later still to the R M Moore Company Ltd. The final name change appears to be More Light Limited in 1921. I believe Moore had sold the company as Mr G U A Chowne took over as manager of the company. The company's original address was 165 Cordova St, W, Vancouver. When your lamp had the decal placed on it, the address was 918 Pender St, W, Vancouver I lose track of More Light Limited in 1922. If they continued, I can't find any reference to them, perhaps they had yet another name change, I don't know. I suspect the decal on your lantern helps to date it between 1921 & 1922. Robert M Moore, manufactured hollow wire lamps. Hollow wire lamps and mantles were the primary manufacturing performed by his company. By the time Robert M Moore sold the company, More Light Limited was still manufacturing mantles and it was said lamps. My belief by this time though is, they were likely only assembling lamps such as yours but may have still been manufacturing hollow wire lamps.
Oh wow! I guess I should post the Nulite Model 5 that I have with the same decal. Very interesting thanks Matty!
After a quick review of the notes I have on this company, it is pertinent that I mention a fire at the factory where $5,000 damaged was sustained. The fire may or may not have been the catalyst for the sale of the company. The fire occurred in August of 1921, and the company changed names and I strongly suspect changed hands, in November of 1921. Either way, it is tempting to think that the company probably had its manufacturing ability compromised and was forced into buying lamps, either as a whole unit or in parts, then assemble them. The truth of the matter is, I don't know exactly what happened. Whether the fire did or didn't result in a reshuffle of the factories operations, I simply don't know.
@MrAlexxx Nice lantern you have there! @Matty ... and a very interesting bit of research, Matty. Cheers Tony
Hi Mr Alex. I have the identical lantern and I'm not disputing Neil's judgement on it as we have talked about the blurred lines between Gloria and Knight Light Interesting I found an ad a while back calling this a Sunray by Knight Light Also they have the Sunshine safety gen set up Either way they are a nice unusual lantern I'll post the ad when I find it Cheers
Knight Light and Gloria are two companies that still puzzle me. Two independent companies but so very often selling similar or identical product. So much so that I have had to consider them as one product and whilst I know that is not right we have to identify the lamps one way or another. Undoubtedly the lantern is a Knight Sunray but it was also a Gloria lantern model P. Both companies were in a conspiracy to confuse us 100 years later so a lot of product was never marked with a maker or assigned a model number. I had to assign a letter code to Gloria product to identify the various models hence the "P" which is my ID and not the correct company designation. Both companies had considerable manufacturing capability so I don't know who made what or in which factory. I can't even be certain of the country of manufacture since both had an Australian operation which was independent but again making similar product. They may have both made all the identical lamps but equally it is possible that each factory made part of the range which were then marketed by both. So blurred is right. Much research effort has been done by me and Matt and whilst we know the factories we still don't know exactly what each produced or what the relationship was between them. ::Neil::
@Mackburner I now have a reasonably big pile of Glorias (sold in Australia) in various states of disrepair. Over the next couple of years I’ll work through them and post them here. Some won’t ever be functional again, but they’ll be useful as part of the Gloria story. There are a few Aussie collectors, like @Matty, who keep on the lookout for Gloria products. I suspect the Gloria/Knight story will take a few more twists and turns. Cheers Tony
@Mackburner @Tony Press As Neil alluded to in his previous post, even with our combined efforts it is still very difficult to nail the Knight Light and Gloria manufacturing history. When Knight Light first appeared in Australia they were selling hollow wire systems. The really odd thing is, they were retailing Storm King lanterns. To me, it looks very long odds that Knight Light ever manufactured in Australia. On the other hand Gloria did manufacture in Australia but not for the first decade at least. Knight Light did manufacture in the US. However, they didn't always manufacture products that they sold. If I may be so bold, I believe if you see a Knight Light product that has a soldered badge as opposed to a Knight Light imprinted stamp, that product was bought and brought in from manufacturers like Gloria, assembled by Knight Light and Knight Light then soldered the badge on. I remember the last time I was fiddling around with the Knight Light history, it dawned on me that Knight Light may not have made it into the 30's as a manufacturer or retailer of GPA products. I can't recall if I pinned it to a certain point in time they ceased the GPA trade. I have pinned down the Gloria Light Co's exit from lamp producing in the US to within a few years but it is still a bit blurry because of companies being formed and name changes etc.
Interesting info guys and I love a good mystery! Tony you can’t hog all those Gloria’s ! Some need to head up north !!
I don't know when Knight died in the US. I do however know when Gloria did. Their last annual report was 1st March 1932 and a decree disolvimg the company was issued by the Superior court 29th May 1933. We don't have the incorporation documents for Knight Light but I suspect their demise was about the same time. ::Neil::
Neil, Yep, 1933 sounds about right and of course with what you said it is right. I never knew you had such documents, that is cool to know. What you may not know is, the Gloria Light Co was running on fumes from the late 20's. Doran had built other companies and Gloria took a back seat and stayed there. Actually, Doran was quite adept at creating companies and having them operate even when Gloria was in full swing.
Well Terry Marsh has bought quite a few sets of incorporation documents and Gloria is one of them. They can be a bit sketchy sometimes. Partly because the company yearly submissons were late or not sent and I get the feeling that some documents may have been lost. Still they are great to see who owned the companies with start and end dates. Neil.
