Oriental Motion Lamp by MerryLamp Blue Cased Glass 1of2

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This auction is for the FIRST SINGLE LAMP OF A PAIR OF IDENTICAL MOTION LAMPS by the Merry Lamp company. Each lamp will be listed separately with a separate Buy It Now Price'. These were a great find for us, but its time to do some remodeling and we have decided to let this pair of wild campy little motion lamps hit the Ebay podium. Each lamp sits on a rectangular black bakelite or similar hard plastic base that is 3 inches wide by 6 inches long and 1.5 inches tall. Upon each base sits an Oriental style pagoda or tile roofed palace finished in gold leaf. The windows of the palace are done in red spotlight gel from Roscolux that was designed for theatrical use. The palace itself is roughly 4.5 inches tall by 4 inches wide. From the center of the tiled roof on the Oriental palace, a solid brass bell shaped shade holder rises an additional 2 inches with the typcial 3 screw fittings to hold the shade securely. Inside each shade holder is a new tri light switch that still uses the original fine chain pull that was supplied with the original lamps. The new brass shade holder is much more functional that the cracked bakelite holders that were used on these lamps some 50-70 years ago. At least two of the holder brackets on the original bakelite shade holders were broken, hence the need to replace them when these lamps were reworked. Now for the crowning glory! The brass shade holder secures the most incredible blue cased glass shade with a 9 sided scalloped design surrounding the entire shade. As is typical of cased glass, the outside is one color and the inside is a pure creamy white. This shade is a beautiful aqua blue and sure enough the inside is pure white! We ain't finished yet! Each of these 6 inch by 6 inch turquoise shades with the white interior contains a motion appartus that spins from the heat of the bulb inside! Voila! Your very own Koi pond contained in the fanciest little boudoir lamp you could ever imagine! Talk about Hollywood Regency! At approximatley 13 inches from base to top of shade, these little beauties had to be very impressive on someone special's vanity....imagine Jean Harlow, maybe Betty Paige....or even Betty Boop! But before I forget! Both of the original metal lamp shades are t as well! They are 9 sided to match the design of the blue glass and you can see the name Merry Lamp embossed and cut through to help release the heat of the lamp inside. The motion mechanism consists of the the original hard wire bracket that fits on top of a standard light bulb and rises to a point that will hold the cellophane spinner that makes the fishes go round! Remember that I mentioned a tri light switch?? For those who don't know what that means.....one pull of the little chain makes the light inside the pagoda light up! Pull the chain again and the pagoda goes dark and the motion lamp lights up! Pull it one more time and BOTH the pagoda and the Koi pond are lit ! Its SHOWTIME!The wire bracket is in great shape, the spinners are original and are fragile but very very functional. The fins on the spinner are a very light alumiunum and when properly balanced start to spin almost immediately. When we found the pair of lamps, one spinner was missing its jewel cup or the little glass cup that sits on the point of the wire bracket. Since this item was critical for the lamp to operate, we went straight to Anna Samuelian, the Empress Emeritus of Motion Lamps to obtain a brand new jewel cup. It was cemented in place according to her instructions and functions just fine. As I mentioned earlier, we replaced the broken bakelite shade holder with the solid brass sturdier variety on both lamps and we also replaced the bakelite tri light switch with a brass one also. Since the socket is inside the shade holder, it is not visible unless the shade is removed. The cord was good and functional and it was left in place. This was a simple restoration but the end product was amazing. These are the cutest little motion lamps that you can imagine. They are shown... read more

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