Monstrosities, Steampunk disasters and other lantern abuse.

At 155euro incl. shipping it would be expensive parts. The only "value" part was the rapid lever.
Was because as it looks (red coloured brass) the lantern has been in an acid bath.

I am guessing but the tank looks old.

But the shop has more:



Strangly they also sell a non converted gas lamp for less money:


Btw I hope I am not crossing the forum rules here but it is a shop not a live auction.

 

Because for this twattishness to continue there must be consumers as well as producers. The former perpetuate the problem by being willing to supply the latter with large sums of money in exchange for their twattery.

I wouldn't give house-room to 99% of the shite sold by Droopy but clearly there are hordes of folk who will - and pay him handsomely in the process. It reminds me of Reggie Perrin's shop, 'Grot'...

Reggie's crazy shop - The Fall and Rise of Reggie Perrin - BBC comedy - YouTube

 

I think that programs about "picking" and mentioning fancy selling prices will motivate people to put a lightbulb in or on anything..

And to be honest if I can sell a rusty crap lantern by painting it white and call it "brocante" for silly money I think I have to change jobs.
Which I think i have to because they do sell....

 

There was also a Harry and Paul character who ran a posh junk shop in London called 'Saw you coming' I think.... very similar concept and also very funny. Stupid people breed stupid offspring and so it continues!

 

Question: are idiot prices also part of this group ?
Or can we , do we want, to post them here?

For instance this nice green Feuerhand Atom lantern globe which sold according to ebay for 1.039,00 US dollars.




Edit:Like someone on FB said: which would nicely fit in this 4.700,00 US dollar Feuerhand:

 

Wait, is that actually $1039? If it is, that's insane... and yes, crazy prices are definitely OK here!

 

$4750 for an old wickie? Is it made of pure gold?

 

Over on CCS THIS butchered (but hopefully retrievable) Petromax 882 indoor lamp has just now surfaced.

John

 

Maybe part of the estate was included.
But more it is not a buggy versio at all, those had an attachment mounted to the air tube.

 

Now HERE.

 

It's not a lamp... although it is now apparently!

 

Definitely a case of WTF!
However, perhaps to those that don’t collect or have an appreciation of lanterns as we do, they my be a useful novelty. Perhaps with some of these monstrosities that have been repurposed they could of finished up in a junk pile lost forever.

 

That's a good point Pete, and there are well crafted examples as well as jaw dropping horror conversions. I guess this thread should be for the worst of the 'WTF were they thinking' type conversions!

Personally, I have a number of unusable parts that simply cannot be salvaged and I could potentially use in an electrifying project of my own... I'll have to think long and hard before I do anything though.

 

Watt! Do who have the erg to do that? Currently speaking however, as socking as it sounds, there could be quite a potential difference between an electrocuted example and a steampunk monstrosity.

Cheers mate
Pete
@ColinG

 

Times have changed and cash is still King.
Someday, the only pressure lanterns/stoves and blowlamps you'd find are those that have been steampunkted to some extents.
And the main part of any fettling project would not be what we've learned or known so far but things such de-electrification, de-steampunktation surgeries and monster domestications.

 

I must admit that steampunk is appealing to me. But there is steampunk and ”steampunk”.
The later is exactly these monstrosities you guys show: butchering stuff just because it is old and brass. Electrifying a lantern... how can it be steampunk when all there it is about in ”proper” steampunk world is that: there is no electricity! That’s why one uses steam!

As a steampunk enthusiast I like Petromax/Optimus and simillar lanterns. They ARE steampunk - no need to convert them. Preserve and run them - yes!
Remove paint or old nickel to reveal brass - well, yes.
Add manometer to already prepared port - YES!
But not electrify!!!

 

That might have been a kinder fate for them.

Anyway, they'll get chucked out soon enough when they're no longer 'this year's thing'...

Define 'steampunk' for me please. Prior to this thread, I hadn't heard anything of it for a couple of years and I'd hoped it had died in favour of another fad. To my untutored eye it just looks like a pile of old junk cobbled together without any particular skill for no known purpose other than, perhaps, to separate the gullible from their far too easily earned cash. But then I'm probably a philistine...

 

Well, imagine year 2021 without electricity. For whatever reason - not yet invented, NATO bombing with grapfite shorting all powerlines etc.
Then try to accomplish what we have today just with Victorian technology: mechanics, steam etc. Like ”Internet” by means of mechanical spiders carrying written information.
It’s a thought experiment, a concept which was then developped into genre of science fiction.
Its offsprings nowadays are indeed monstrosities but that is another story of our nature.
Most importantly thou: our beloved pressure devices are a part of this genre. Maybe with more manometers but not with something added without purpose. After all - Victorian-era folks were equally pragmatic as we are today. Or maybe even more.
”Steampunk” as we discuss in this thread is a ”pulp culture” to me. Colourful but pulp. No harm in it, just funny.

 

uh never seen the:victorian farm saga?
I do love steampunk (some of it) but the idea of going back in the future; we just left the steam era, with no internet, with steamengines, no such steampunk things where made.

 

Absolutely!

 

Not sure this is a monstrosity; it is certainly a curiosity, one I came across yesterday in the Australian Museum. This is an elema, a mask used in an initiation ceremony somewhere in Papua New Guinea, known universally around here, as it is out closest neighbour, as PNG. There are hundreds of languages in PNG and many different cultural groups, I don’t know which this comes from or when. All materials are organic, roots, leaves, bark etc. And no, its not a pressure lamp but many here have wickies...

 

PS, strong chance the lamp is a “Lanora”.

 

That’s a particularly good mask!

Cheers

Tony

 

The UK is a member of NATO (isn't Sweden?) - why would we bomb ourselves? And if anybody did render the electrical grid useless, how would all those steampunk bulbs be any help? Those plumbing fittings joined by odd lengths of copper pipe going nowhere with a few odd wires and unconnected electrical gubbins here and there - what's that all about? Stupid blokes wandering about wearing top-hats with goggles round the brim? - the lunatics have taken over the asylum without a doubt.

Anyway, none of what you've written bears any resemblance to what I see paraded as 'steampunk' - mostly it's what I said, "a pile of old junk cobbled together without any particular skill for no known purpose other than, perhaps, to separate the gullible from their far too easily earned cash." It doesn't even need to do anything other than sit there looking not particularly ornamental. Give me a decent bit of Clarice Cliff anyday.

Pulp culture? I've absolutely no idea what you're talking about - I think you're just making it up as you go along.

I need to lie down...

 

Hear hear, nice one David.

 

@David Shouksmith as I wrote: popular culture (pulp culture, junk culture - you name it) has borrowed the name ”steampunk” from science-fiction and produces these copper-pipe nonsence stuff under that name.
That’s all about it.
The only harm I see in it is that people who never heard of nor read any good steampunk S-F instantly connect steampunk with that junk. That’s not fair to this genre but it’s probably too late anyway.

As for NATO bombing with graphite - that was just an example. It was used in Jugoslavia under one of these recent wars to cut out power stations without distroying infrastructure. Quite smart in my opinion.

I think you misinterpret what I wrote. I’m not defending building nonsence creations out of copper pipes and lanter founds. We all agree on that it’s monstrosity.
My point was about steampunk as a legitimate genre of science fiction.

That people buy these monstrosities and like them... - well, de gustibus non disputandum est

 

I’m not a great lover of steampunk, though was once accused of being steampunk when outside a cafe on my pals ancient Sunbeam motorbike!

Art takes many forms and has broken many taboos on the way. I might not see the art in a Jackson Pollock, others do. Whatever our personal tastes may be, art should always be encouraged.

Two of my favourite styles, Art Deco and Gothic! Not exactly bedfellows.

 

@BigStevie I totally agree with you.

 

Please remember what I said in my original statement everyone. No flaming and no unpleasantness. Come on... let's keep this cordial.

My Two Pennerth...

Some Steampunk - if it's done well - can be rather good and there seems to be a high level of skill involved in creating it, but nothing I've seen on eBay counts as Steampunk in my opinion. Most of it's just leftover plumbers crap and old electrical fittings thrown together by talent-less chancers and bought by the gullible.... oh and a good proportion of it ruins genuinely nice vintage equipment!

@BigStevie - I definitely love both Deco and Gothic too... plus a bit of Art Nouveau - Gaudi's architecture is amazing IMHO. I do like abstract expressionism too, even Pollock now and then but I have to be in the mood. I don't think there's anything you're supposed to 'get' particularly, you just like looking at it or you don't.

There's a Pollock called '5 Blue Lines' which is one of his standard splattered mess of paint dribbles on a canvas. I saw it in a gallery decades and decades ago and stood looking at it trying to work out WTF I was meant to be seeing when I suddenly did! Underneath all the splatters were indeed five blue lines! They were easy to miss but it was like one of those optical illusions that you have to stare at for ages to see. I remember smiling to myself - it was like a secret you've suddenly been made aware of. There's a Monet that has a similar effect... one of his Poppy Fields series. If you stand up close (as most people in the gallery were) all you see is a field of grass with some poppies in it plus some flouncy 19C girls in crinoline skirts wandering around looking decorative. It's very 'chocolate box' and OK-ish I suppose if you like that sort of thing but... if you stand maybe 10 - 15 feet away and look again you can actually see the path where they've walked through the grass! But go up close and the effect completely disappears! It's like blooming magic I tell you! My wife and I spent ages with the class (it was a school trip) running backwards and forwards to see the 'optical illusion' in awe. I don't know how Monet did it but he was one clever dude and went up hugely in my estimation. Art can be like that sometimes.

Well that was longer than I intended!