Antique mantle lamp shade holders

If we had a "dysfunctional gear and equipment" category this would probably fit best there. It's a bit of a rant, but maybe somebody has seen one of these in a dusty old box in an attic and can give me a lead.

The issue is with shade holders for Montgomery Ward (E&G) and Sears (Farmor) kerosene mantle lamps made in 1937/38. The shade holders were apparently unique to these models and didn't exist before or after. Coleman made only one mantle lamp in the United States with two styles of shade holder (round and flat), I can find these. The Wards and Sears shade holders and shades seem to be lost in the dust bin of history.

Their design tells us why. They're goofy looking, and only suited to a specific lamp and shade. As far as I can tell, and I've been researching this since 2015, they only exist in pictures and illustrations. Like these:



Farmor decided that it was a good idea to make their blinding bright burner completely slick on the outside with no provision for a gallery mounted shade holder. Instead, they patented a shade holder that mounted to the glass chimney on their 115 CP burner. It had worked for years on flat wick lamps, so why not. Keep in mind that the Farmor was mind-blowingly bright for its time. The Coleman Kero-Lite, and Aladdin, using the same output measurement were rated at 40 and 60 CP. Then we hang a sixteen inch parchment shade on the glass chimney and expect it to lift up and down on the gentle taper of the glass is it expands and contracts during operation. Hmmm? Add some children, a few moves, and maybe a curious kitty, and it's no wonder none of these survived except in pictures.



Montgomery Ward shade holders are slightly better, because the the Ehrich & Graetz burner was also nearly identical to burners used in Europe. Fourteen inch gallery mounted under-shade mounts are available. The trouble is, in the 1937/38 instruction manual they show a shade holder that doesn't seem to exist anywhere but in this picture. It's an inverted cone shade mount that would be gallery mounted, but supported the parchment shade inside the upper ring. Other than the fact that I have to create this thing from the picture, I like it. It will help support a chimney if it's somehow fumbled, and it can be sized to use existing Aladdin and Coleman fourteen inch (spider-less) shades.

Having just happily concluded my eleven year, nine state hunt for the white ceramic base to complete my 1937 Montgomery Ward mantle lamp collection, I'm now moving on to shades and shade holders. I think shades will be absolutely unobtainable, but I can break out the TIG welder and make a workable shade holder.



You'll notice that these lamps go along with what I always say about "dummy cord."
It's as much to protect them from me as anything.



It's not even an attractive vase. Completely useless for anything other than what it was designed for. It has a big hole in the bottom so the lamp can breathe. I suspect all of these were smashed up and in the trash by the 1950's. I know of only one other.

Okay, that's enough ranting about goofy shade holder designs. You probably didn't want to spend too much time inside my head anyway. Now I can go back to chopping up spoons and forks to make crafty stuff that look like key chain bangles and wind chime dingers and not prison shivs. WooHoo!!