So I was teasing a family member who tries to start a life in Ireland, Cork to be precise. She spotted an old messed up Tilley 246 in a pub. I wrote her: if you come across this model: buy it ! For what price, the answer was ? There I was overruled: I know it is rare but how rare and how does this translate to money? So what would be the price range for this model (picture from fb)? Mind you: it is more fun then spotted one in real life.
In my opinion it all depends on whether I have the money and how good the condition of the lamp actually is. If the lamp is in really bad shape then I wouldn't buy it, no matter how rare it is. So I suppose I would go up to $1000 AUD, only if it's in fantastic condition and I don't have one in my collection. But in saying that I don't have a spare $1000 bucks either.
Seems that the question didn't trigger many responses. So are there any lantern collectors in Ireland and then specific in the Cork area? Now my daughter wants a "Daddy lantern" (yup two days black out help ;-) but I wonder if a kerosene lantern would survive the postal stress. So I am looking for some "local" knowledge and advice.
I'm terrible at determining the value of a lamp, but if it looks like it has a fighting chance of being brought to a serviceable condition, not talking about a showpiece but a beater that can be made to work, I might through a couple hundred bucks at it at most to see if I can get a counter, and then go from there. ...though if it looks nearly pristine, I may personally stay away from it because I know it will be well out of my price range, but used car prices wouldn't surprise me.
In saying that it must be a very rare lamp to pay that amount of money. So far I haven't even come close to spending that amount of money on any lamp.
One factor might be whether the seller knows what they have (or not). Mine came from a seller who didn't, although it was missing the shade which I didn't ever get around to replacing with anything suitable. Still, he got far more than he was expecting so I didn't feel I'd taken advantage of him...
