G'day all, I have had this contraption for awhile now but have just got around to looking at it in detail. I bought the unit for the tank, hoping to one day find a lamp head for it. Now I have looked at the unit closely, I think the connection on the stem, where the steel pipe joins the stem to the burner has been oversized by the creator and I doubt a standard lamp connection will fit anymore. I couldn't turn the valve on the burner until I applied plenty of heat from a gas torch. Once removed from the burner, I cleaned up the thread and it went back together just fine. I added some fuel to the tank then pressurised the tank to 15PSI, preheated the burner with some metho and low and behold it fired up. Even if I find I can't use the tank for a lamp I suppose, I'll still own a piece of GPA history. I suspect this conversion was done many, many moons ago. The light up was done in my shed, not my kitchen. @Carlsson Christer, I left of an 'e' at the end of Nulit in the Title. I couldn't for the life of me work out how to edit the title. I'd appreciate it if you could do it for me.
Hello Matty, to edit the title just click on the tab which says thread tools and a menu will appear and then click on the tab which says edit title. Matty
@JEFF JOHNSON Jeff, I don't know if it is because the 10 minute window to edit ones post is up or if it is because I'm as blind as a bat, I can't for the life of me see the tab 'Thread Tools'
Matt. That looks to be a Best style tank. Is it marked in the base at all? They are about 20mm dia and often faint so easy to miss. Looks like this. ::Neil::
Neil, I can't see any marks or stampings of any kind. I will clean up the base plate and see if something is revealed. Neil, the Best stamp: Is the base plate it is stamped on steel? My tank has a copper base plate. I have a 1910 patent for the Nulite table lamp that we don't have a Model No for, as per your PLC. That patent shows this tank and this tank was shown in advertising for the table lamp. However, that does not prove that Nulite invented this tank. They probably chose this tank from a selection of tanks they could have used by 3rd party tank manufacturers.
A copper base? That was a Pitner trick and I don't recall any other US lamp brand with a copper fount. I have 4 lamps with this tank and all are steel base with brass sides. The 3 Best tanks are marked as I showed but the Nulite Table lamp is not marked. I don't know who made them though. The Nulite is an Acorn Brass product not National Stamping but in theory either Best or Acorn could have manufactured the tanks or maybe both outsourced from another company. It is worth a look though because on one of my Best Lamps the mark was very faint and not visible until the base was cleaned. ::Neil::
My gmail, as a lot of others is down so I can't get a photo at the minute. I'll post the base plate when normal service resumes. This tank is most certainly copper as is the base plate. The rather large bolt head is brass. I have a 1910 patent of Henry Bandlow that depicts this tank on his Nulite Reading Lamp. Bandlow was with National Stamping. To me, I doubt Bandlow, National Stamping, Best or Acorn designed the tank, this or any others. I can't see any stamp. I suppose I should look for Dangler stoves/furnaces. This might have been something done by them and not a Franken as I think it is.
@Mackburner A collector has just told me he has a nickel plated version of this fount. He is going to check the base plate for me but that may take a couple of days.
@Matty @Mackburner Matt and Neil, I´ve got two of these "Nulite/Best" style founts. One is on a Brilliant Gas Lamp Co. "Triumph" stand lamp; brass sides and a steel bottom plate. No markings! The other is on a Best No.226 stand lamp. All copper fount ... also the bottom plate, with no markings. Maybe only the Best steel bottom plates were marked? Attached a side by side view of the two founts ……..
I was certainly not aware that Best made copper founts. Unmarked as well so we have to assume not all Best lamps are marked I guess. ::Neil::
@conny Thanks for the input. Here is my base plate. It is interesting our different perspectives on these tanks. You believe Best made all these tanks for the different manufacturers whilst I believe all the manufacturers including Best got the tanks from a specialist tank manufacturer.
Not a question of who manufactured them really. I tend to call them Best or Best style tanks because with marked examples I know Best sold them. With examples turning up as different brands/models from companies who MAY have manufactured the tanks they could have been made by any of them or outsourced by all of them. ::Neil::
@Mackburner It is amazing how coincidences can happen when one is researching. When I looked at your Best stamp, my impression was that it didn't look like it was done mechanically, it looked like someone, an untrained someone, had knocked up a stamp in a workshop and the stamps were done by hand. The faint mark also made sense to me that it was done by hand, done once the base plate/tank were complete so a soft touch was needed. I've just been sitting here reading about how lamps were manufactured and the article specifically mentioned lamps being stamped either mechanically or by hand. This Best stamp surely must of been done by hand. It even looks like a home made job.
Further to Best Light Co hand stamping. This stamp is an ink stamp that was more than likely done by hand - after Best had the cowling in their possession. Both offsetting and complimenting the hand stamps, I have 3 other examples of this cowling with different modes of stamping. One of them, which I would bet was the last in the progression is fully machine stamped. I have a couple of other of these cowlings that have a black ink stamp stating the Best Light Co.... There are others I have that just have the patent date. I am in no way able to ascertain if the cowlings with just the patent date stamped on them ever had an ink stamp. They may have but the ink stamps have worn off or polished off sometime over the last 120 years. By the time the full machine stamping was being performed, I'm happy to believe that Best may have been producing and stamping the cowlings themselves. They may not have, the factory that was producing them may have simply been stamping them. I believe that factory to be Scovill Mfg. Best, like the majority of GPA lamp manufacturers, particularly prior to 1920, bought in 90% of their lamps and assembled them. Best would have manufactured the burner, probably the packing tube, possibly the mantle/globe holder and assorted chimney parts as per the requirements of particular types of lamps. Indoor, outdoor, Arc, etc.
