Antique Blue Uranium Glass Mini Oil Lamp, S2-219 GLOWS

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Petite Blue "Uranium Glass" Miniature Oil Lamp with Embossed Beaded Chimney/Shade, S2-219 Blue Miniature Oil Lamp, S2-219 About 6" tall to top of shade Base about 3" in diameter at widest point Shade about 2 1/2" in diameter at widest point Small Embossed Blue Night Lamp S2-219 Fluoresces under "black" light Manufactured by Dugan Glass Co, Ca. 1907 Unmarked acorn burner with ring of dots on thumb wheel Glass glows bright green under "black" light Background & History: This cute little lamp is shown in Figure 219 of Ruth Smith's book "Miniature Lamps II". The Smiths describe the lamp as being found in green, blue, amethyst and clear glass. Hulsebus (in the "Price Guide for Miniature Lamps") notes that the lamp is found in colored glass and rates it as being "common" (see the note below on our use of these ratings in eBay listings). In the course of tracking the sale of over 34,000 listed miniature lamps on eBay over the past 5 3/4 years, we've only seen 27 examples of this lamp in various colors (including 9 in green, 3 in clear glass, 5 in Ivory/Custard) and, of those, only 8 were made of blue glass like this lamp--so, this "common" little lamp in blue glass shows up on eBay only about once every 9 months. A February 27, 1975 article in "Antique Trader" by Ann McDonald identifies this lamp as having been made by the Dugan Glass Company, circa 1907. McDonald made this attribution based on a couple of pages from a Dugan Glass Company catalog. McDonald also attributes the lamp shown in Figure 467 of Frank & Ruth Smith's book "Miniature Lamps" to Dugan. That lamp uses the same beaded shade as this lamp. One other lamp, shown in Figure 221 of Ruth Smith's book uses an almost identical beaded shade (it appears to be missing only the 3 horizontal bands at the shade top) suggesting that perhaps it too was made by Dugan. Judging from the mold lines, it appears that both the shade and the base were made in three-part molds. And, according to Smith, the lamp was originally decorated with multi-colored flowers but the paint was not fired-on and is thus frequently worn. T are still a few flowers and the remnants of others on this lamp, but we'd estimate that only about half the original decor remains. We can also see on this lamp that the vertical row of beads on the shade were originally gilded. Some of the gilding remains on three of the 9 rows. When we viewed this lamp under "black light" we discovered that it did in fact glow a bright green color. This fluorescence, explained in our note below, indicates that uranium was used as a coloring agent in the making of the glass and that thus, the glass would be called "uranium glass". Condition of this lamp: This lamp is in good condition. T are two small, shallow flakes on the top of the shade. Both are shown in the last photo. The one to the left in the photo is about 3/8" long and is primarily on the top surface of the rim. The one on the right is only about 1/8" wide and about 1/8" high and is on the inner surface of the shade. Neither of these are very conspicuous. The shade fitter has a couple of very minor flea-bites. The old brass hardware on this lamp, which has been polished, consists of a collar with no splits or cracks and an acorn burner (embossed "THE P & A MFG CO ACORN" on the front of the thumb wheel and "MADE IN U.S.A." on the back). The burner is fully functional; the thumb wheel easily adjusts the old wick as it should. The collar is securely attached to the font and the burner screws tightly into the collar. This is a cute little lamp which, although rated as being "common" just isn't found all that often (27 complete and undamaged examples in the past 5 3/4 years and just 8 examples in blue glass. Made by Dugan Glass Company just over 100 years ago (making this officially an antique as defined by the ... read more

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