2011 Eastern Lighting Collectors' Meet Report, April 7th, 8th, and 9th, Somerset PA
The 33rd Eastern Lighting Collectors' Meet, hosted by Tom Small and Tom Millman, was held at the Quality Inn of Somerset, PA. Over 165 collectors registered for the event.
Room shopping began Tuesday with the first arrivals and continued through Friday evening. A large variety of lamps, parts, shades and other accessories were available. Prices asked seemed on the reasonable side and several room vendors reported strong sales.
The lamp show on Saturday ran from noon until 4pm. Again a very large variety of lamps were available, including Aladdin and competitor lamps plus a very generous sampling of flat wick lamps and burners. One vendor had a large array of different flat wick burners with matching chimneys.
The Rushlight Club had a table at the show, providing information about the Club and the benefits of membership. Several copies of Early Lighting, The Nichols Catalogue and a Rushlight Archives DVD were sold and two new memberships were taken as people stopped to talk.
Tom Logan and Stan Walker gave a presentation on "Lantern Makers of the Eastern Great Lakes Basins" for the evening seminar. They carefully traced the development of the outdoor lighting devices pointing out the differences in dead flame, cold blast and hot blast lanterns.
Starting with a list of Canadian tin-ware manufacturers, they traced the history of lantern companies and some of the key people involved. Among the companies covered were Irwin, Embury/Defiance, Piper, E.T. Wright, Dominion Tubular, Sheet Metal Product (SMP), General Steel Wares (GSW), Ontario Lantern & Lamp (OL&L), Pritchard Stamping (PRISCO), Buhl Stamping and Steam Gauge & Lantern Co.
As was the case with kerosene lighting in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, there was also a lot of American and Canadian cross border lantern activity.
Thank you, Tom and Stan for an outstanding piece of work and good luck in your future research on this topic.
The 34th Eastern Lighting Collector's Meet has been scheduled for April 12th-14th, 2012, in Somerset, PA.
The Rushlight Club Inc. www.rushlight.org