And now I have five Aladdin lamps, of which four work: a plain-stem clear Washington Drape, made between 1940 and 1948, an amber Corinthian, made in 1935 or 1936, a reproduction cobalt Tall Lincoln Drape, made in 2000 (the original cobalt TLDs were made in 1940 and cost $1,500 to $2,500 on the collector’s market), and a table model Genie II, made in the last few years. The fifth, a British Model 12 (or a Model 12 burner; the font looks like it belongs to a Model 11), made between 1928 and 1935, has a tooth broken on the wick-lifter gear, which precludes adjusting the wick, and hence using the lamp. The story of how I got all my lamps is on my Aladdin page.
I picked up the Genie for five dollars at a yard sale last weekend, missing its chimney and mantle—today I bought a mantle and chimney, and an O-ring for its filler cap, and cranked it up. It seems to have a loose seam around the top of the tank that weeps, and wants investigation to find why—it’s not a leak, so it isn’t an explosion hazard or much of a fire hazard, but it’s messy and smelly so I want to figure it out and fix it if possible.
A working British Model 12 burner is gonna cost me $50 to $75, I expect, and then I’ll have to dig up a heel-less chimney and a mantle (the common Lox-On mantle won’t work for the older lamps), and maybe a gallery. One way and another, it’s gonna take me a hundred bucks to make it work again. Once all that’s done, I need to dig up suitable shades for all of them; the Washington Drape is the only one with a shade.
And I am positively vexed that I can’t find a source of clear (un-dyed) kerosene in Austin! My two usual sources for this sort of offbeat thing have both failed me, and I’m damned if I want to pay $13 a gallon for lamp oil when I could use kerosene for $8 a gallon.
