Manufacturer Logos on Wick Knobs
With very few exceptions, wick knobs bear a logo of their manufacturer. These logos are for the most part unmistakable marks of the burner manufacturer and make it easy to identify the manufacturer, provided you have good, extensive wick knob logo collections from qualified collectors such as Gerhard Bruder or Werner Pempel to hand.
The exceptions mentioned above are often found on American central air draft burners, which sometimes only bear "Made in U.S.A.", sometimes nothing at all on their wick knobs. The marking of the respective manufacturer can often only be found on the flame disc of such burners, additionally with indication of patents. A few European burners in my collection also do not have a logo on their wick knobs.
Some wick knobs have an inscription that clearly indicates the manufacturer. Some logos, however, consist only of images (today this would be called an "icon") without any writing or letters. In such cases, the logo collections of prominent collectors can be very helpful.
Many lamp or burner manufacturers have developed different logos over time. There has been a veritable inflation of wick knob logos, especially in Germany. Even in the case of very well-known, easily identifiable logos by Wild & Wessel or Hugo Schneider, there were always small changes in the details of the same logo design. Of course, there is no need to make a pseudo-science out of it; if a logo can be clearly assigned to a manufacturer, the task is already solved. But I still find it interesting to draw attention to such changes in detail, just for the fun of it.
On the other hand, it becomes uncomfortable with wick knob logos that bear an inscription but still do not reveal their manufacturer. These include first and foremost the designations "Kosmos Brenner" for the German burners and "Duplex" for the British burners. A similar case is the wick knob with the inscription "Reform-Rund-Brenner", which was used by at least three German manufacturers.
I have sorted all the burner logos of burners in my possession (i.e. also of defective, discarded, electrified or not still installed burners) according to their manufacturers. I ended up with about 300 different logos. More than half of them belong to German burners. Consequently, I have grouped the logos into three sub-chapters:
1. German Burner Logos
2. Logos of Other Countries
3. Unidentified/Questionable Logos
The logos are always subtitled with their respective manufacturer. Where necessary, however, I have also added the corresponding burner (but without the word "burner"). In cases where the logo was made for another dealer or lamp seller, I have also noted this additionally.