In Praise of Older Lamps

Hello. My name is Dave, and I'm a lampoholic.

I'm not sure why it is, but somewhere along the line I unknowingly became a collector of old lamps. Oh sure, it started off unknowingly, but after a while I started knowingly seeking out older lamps. Then I learned some advanced search features on C's List and started scouring the entire state of Florida for old lamps. It's out of control, but I'll run out of money someday and then it'll come to an end.

Maybe.

I remember it like it was a year and a half ago. I saw this beauty and thought to myself "Hmm, looks like Jeannie's bottle". Being a Barbara Eden fan I bought it.

Yes, I know. The shade's too short. I was in a hurry.

Then I thought I needed some lamps that were a bit more formal looking. I bought this pair without shades. Wonder Woman took a couple of hours to learn how to make shades, and whipped out these two to give my "formal" lamps nice top hats.

Yes, you only see one but I do have a pair.

I bought this next pair in St. Louis (Hello, Mr. Modtomic) while passing through a while back. They were advertised as new old stock, 1956 lamps, and looked a lot bigger in the pictures. I was a bit disappointed, but Wonder Woman loves them.

To make them seem larger I put them on really small tables.

I am a Danish Modern kind of guy. I love teak. I love artificial teak. I love walnut when it's misrepresented as teak. And especially, I love old brass and bent teak. I found these in St Petersburg, FL. Then I found another one with no shade, and then I found one more without a shade. So now I have four of these. One pair with the great cone shades and another pair for which Wonder Woman is making new shades.

I have four of these and couldn't be happier about it.

I found this big 'ol chunk-o-lamp at the local Goodwill. I'm not in love with it, but  . . .

The ceramic is so heavy on this it's registered as a lethal weapon.

I'm still deciding on this one. I like how the shade is wider than it is tall, and how that follows the lines of the big white ostrich egg looking thing that is the body of this lamp. But something about it remains out of my grasp. When I brought it home it had some potential for being insect housing. It sat out here on the porch for a while.

Of course not all lamps must sit on a table. I like pole lamps and pull down lamps as well. The pole lamp is the most expensive lamp I've ever purchased. Let's not get into exact numbers here, but we'll just say it's in excellent shape and I paid for that excellence. The flying saucer pull down is rebuilt (by me) and has a fiberglass shade underneath.

The name of the painting is Masquerading 'Mingos

So do you agree? Vintage lamps rule. Why would anyone buy some new hunk-o-crap from China with all this beautiful ceramic, wood, and brass out there at less than half the price?


We'll be back later with . . . more stuff.