Hi all, First seeing this rare lamp I wanted it, regardless of the poor condition it seemed to be in. I knew it would be difficult bringing it back to life and it was a tough beast to conquer. The whole lamp seemed to be painted with a sticky black, oily, greasy "something", or was it just indescribably dirty? My hope of getting a shiny nickel finish back was long gone and after the first try of cleaning the lamp I nearly gave up when I detected seven small stress cracks and one big "gap" crack on top of the fount. Adding to that negative side was that the fuel pipe joint was split with several cracks. Disassembling the lamp showed however something positive, when discovering that the burner parts were all there, including a functioning cleaning needle unit. Decided first to try an epoxy lining of the fount with Restom (a French tank sealer). It was successful and with the fuel pipe joint fixed I did a pressure test, which was OK. Made a generator restoration with a new asbestos string inserted and assembled all the parts and the lamp was firing up on the first try. This is the ca. 1910 Allen Sparks Giant Portable stand lamp Nr. 83, made by Allen-Sparks Gas Light Co., Lancing Michigan. This lamp is a torch lit gasoline lamp with a light output of 200-500 CP. The lamp was invented by M.F. Sparks with the tip cleaner device constructed by an officer of the company R.A. Astley. That same Astley will a couple of years later make a new stand lamp for the Allen-Sparks company ; the Astley Parlour Lamp. This Giant lamp is equipped with an opal white globe shade, often referred to as the No.289 Alba globe shade also by other manufacturers. Seems to be a plain standard opal globe shade at that time. Nice and well built lamp with a simple and well functioning burner unit. Not many of these around, I recon. Please note the burner cap, probable made early Monday morning by a worker with a severe hangover /Conny Some "before" shots.... ...1910 catalogue pages from Allen Sparks no. 70 (Neil McRae)........
Beautiful restoration Conny, perhaps the gunk protected the lamp for all these years until it could get to your hands.
It's a wonderful lamp and as always, well presented Conny. I saw this lamp and wanted it. At the time I had made several large purchases and this lamp with the shipping costs to Australia simply came up at the wrong time for me. It's in much safer hands as it turns out.