I acquired a vapalux 300 lamp in very poor condition. It has a mostly brass cage with ‘patents pending’ stamped on it. So it looks early. But it has two brass and two steel rods. Does anyone have an idea why that might be? Were W and B moving over to wartime steel and just used whatever was to hand in the factory? I can’t think why you’d want to replace the rods, presumably in wartime. I can’t tell without close inspection, but it doesn’t seems to have been painted. It has a steel tank.
In my opinion, that lantern is from the WW2., era and W&B were using up what they had in stock, many Tilley products from that era are also made with a mixture of steel and brass parts.
