- #1
Thread Owner
Bottle Vitals
(yeah, I know it's not a bottle)| Date | Color | Shape | Size (Height x Diameter) | Value* | |
| Cantata Kerosene Lantern | 1880s | Clear | Lamp, one piece, bell base | 8.875" x 5" | $40.00 |
Bottle Views (click to enlarge):
| Back | Side | Side | Bottom | |
 |  |  |  |  |
This one was a bear to track down. There are a bewildering number of old oil and kerosene lamp patterns, almost all of them having this general shape, which makes an image search fruitless. I only got one exact match, on an old eBay post, but unfortunately it had no information at all. But I found it in a book on old oil lamps. It is named as the "Cantata" pattern, and the single-line mention of it in the book said it may have originally had a slightly pink tint. If this one ever had that tint, it has long since faded away. It is a one-piece lamp, not the more common two-piece kind which had a separate reservoir and base.
It isn't clear who made it, but I think it was the Union Glass Company, out of Somersville, Massachusetts. I could not find an online copy of their product catalog, but they made all sorts of glass, and I did see one mention of the Cantata lamp that also mentioned their company, so I'm going with it. They specialized in private label and odd pattern items, so this may have been a private label piece. It has no identifying marks of any kind.
They were founded in 1851 and produced a wide rage of glassware of every description, employing over 200 people at one point, including, apparently, a protestant groundskeeper (though this may not have been for the company directly, but I found the advertisement amusing).
At one point, Union Glass Company even made a giant 150-lb punch bowl for Tiffany & Co, which was displayed at Tiffany's showroom in New York. But eventually the company closed its doors in 1927.
Here is an example of what it might have looked like back in the day.
I had thought about restoring this specimen back to functionality, but I didn't realize it had the big crack in it until after cleaning. (I wish I had taken more "before" photos to be sure I didn't somehow crack it during cleaning, but I have been extremely careful about not cracking anything, and have no reason to believe I did so in this case. When I turn it to match the "before" photo, using the seam as a reference, the crack is almost not visible, so I may have just missed it.). Given the possibility of kerosene lamps exploding, it doesn't seem worth the risk.
Finally, here are the before and after photos. Used soap and water, brushes, and a wooden scraper.
* Value is based on sold eBay listings as of the time of posting. Value varies greatly with condition. This specimen would probably not fetch the quoted price.
