Valuation of Kerosene/Paraffin Lamps
Who does not know this situation? You see a great piece, be it a collector's item, a not everyday utilitarian object, some product with an unusual design, etc., and ask yourself whether the price asked for it is justified. Sometimes the price seems overpriced and sometimes it seems like a "bargain", depending on how we value the object. At that moment, we are certainly acting subjectively; what would be more useful, of course, would be a reliable, fact-based, objective valuation.
This brings us to another dilemma with kerosene/paraffin lamps after dating them: estimating their value! Estimating the value of a lamp reasonably and objectively is even more difficult than dating it. First of all, it must be accepted that, as always, supply and demand determine the market value of an antique. If there are a lot of collectors with fatter wallets, then far higher prices can be achieved than in the days when one collecting area went quite out of fashion. I remember that in the 1960-70's, for example, the great demand for genuine antique pewter plates of the baroque period had swept the market dry. Today, the same pewter plates are more likely to be seen as slow sellers at antique dealers.
In addition to market demand, the age, original preservation, authenticity and provenance of a lamp naturally play an important role. Size and rich, elaborate design, fitting with rare burners and their original chimneys and countless other factors can also play a decisive role in the valuation.
Originality and Authenticity
Now something important to keep in mind when the question of originality of a lamp is raised: Kerosene/paraffin lamps, when they were newly manufactured, were marketed both complete with shade or without shade. This gave the customer the freedom to choose a shade to suit his taste from the range of shades offered by the lamp manufacturer or dealer. There were dozens of glass tulips, glass globes and even painted and unpainted Vesta shades on offer. Some manufacturers even went one step further and left the choice of burner to their customers. I have seen old lamp catalogues where a lot of lamps without burner, chimney and shade are shown with their prices. Consequently, the customer could assemble his lamp as he wished (and according to the "thickness" of his wallet). It should also be noted that glass shades of any kind, along with glass chimneys, were among the most frequently broken parts of the lamps; one had to remove the shade and chimney each time to light the burner, and then put them back on again. If a breakage occurred, the lamp owner had to replace the broken part with a new one, but the original parts were probably no longer in stock. So he bought another one. What was not very problematic with the glass chimneys, as the dealer certainly knew which chimney to sell with which burner; with the shades it did lead to a change, in the worst case to a mixture of styles. Conclusion: Lamps that are completely original are a real rarity; and the best proof of this can be found in pictures in old catalogues. In my subjective opinion, there are hardly any truly original lamps left.
That pretty much covers the question of originality. But what about authenticity? For me, a lamp is more or less authentic if all its components are at least from the same time period, even if they are not original parts of the lamp. If I replace the defective Kosmos burner of an old lamp with a completely newly manufactured Kosmos burner instead of looking for a burner that is still old, even with the same brand of the defective one, as a replacement, then I violate the authenticity of this lamp not insignificantly. With a lamp whose manufacturer is perfectly known, one should not use just any burner from a completely different manufacturer if one wants to preserve the authenticity of this lamp. The same applies to shades: a modern Art Nouveau lamp from around 1910 should not be fitted with an old ball shade from the Moderator lamps. I am well aware that it is not always possible to replace a missing or broken part of a lamp with an authentic replacement part that fits the age and style very well. At least in the case of high-quality, rare lamps, the collector should nevertheless take care to preserve the authenticity of the lamp as far as possible.
Actual Value / Market Value / Individual Value
What is the value of an antique? A very simple question, but one that is very difficult to answer comprehensively. Let us take a closer look at this question.
Every antique has an actual value that is determined by appraisers and experts over the long years of experience. In the case of rare, famous, well-known pieces, this value has crystallised, depending on many objectively ascertainable criteria. This value is quite well established and is likely to be accepted in many nations of the world with little variation. The objective criteria for determining the actual value of an antique are, for example, fame of the artist, age, state of preservation, provenance, rarity, artistic significance, artisanal and technical effort of its production (to count the most important ones) and certainly some more.
The market value, on the other hand, is the price that the market, i.e. the totality of buyers, is willing to pay for a particular antique at a given time and in a given region. The market value is thus strongly subject to fashion trends and it can sometimes deviate considerably upwards or downwards from the actual value. Collectibles that are highly prized in one country and negotiated at expensive prices may fetch a much lower price in another country where they are hardly noticed by collectors.
There are lamps that are often traded at high prices due to their fame, such as the "Vesta lamp" by Wild & Wessel. Other, much rarer lamps, on the other hand, may be sold "far below value" because no one is interested in them. There are lamps that attract an indescribably large community of collectors, such as Aladdin lamps in the USA, even though they have little artistic value whatsoever, because they were often made in large quantities from cheap pressed glass. Such a lamp, which cannot even find a buyer for 150 euros in Europe, can possibly fetch three times that amount when it is offered in the USA. Yet the Aladdin lamps really have no rarity value, if one disregards a very special colour or a particular shape.
The so-called insurance value is the value negotiated between an insurance company and the owner of the antique, which is paid out if the antique and valuable object is irrecoverably damaged or even stolen. This value can be based on the actual as well as the current market value of the object.
And the individual value? This value is often disconnected from the two definitions of value described above, because it reflects solely our own, completely subjective/individual assessment of value, which does not follow any objective criteria or fashions. If a collector has fallen in love with an antique and wants to have it at all costs, then only he determines how much he wants to pay for it. This has less to do with the actual or market value of the antique than with the degree of personal "want to have" and the "thickness" of one's wallet. If, for example, one has finally found the one missing piece in one's collection after a long, desperate search, then it should not matter to him where the price should settle according to any objective criteria. The individual value is also reflected in the spiritual value of an object, e.g. a family heirloom or a gift from a particularly beloved or valued person.
Sooner or later, one has to admit that an objective valuation of a lamp is really difficult. If you are faced with an offer, you have to find out for yourself whether you are prepared to pay the asking price. The same applies in auction houses and eBay auctions: One must first agree with oneself on the maximum price one is willing to pay, even if it may cause some pain. This self-determined maximum level of the price, the so-called definitive pain threshold, is the personally determined individual value of the lamp, at the moment of the offer and only for the willing buyer himself. At other times, in other circumstances, with other people, this value will settle at a different level, which may be considerably higher or lower than at the time of purchase. I have lamps in my collection about whose purchase price, which I paid, I can only shake my head doubtfully today, because it is considerably higher than what I would pay for these lamps today. On the other hand, there were also lamps that I did not buy at auction because the price seemed much too high to me at the time, and today I sincerely regret my inability to do so at the time, because now I would pay even considerably more for these lamps if they were offered again...
This says almost everything about the valuation of a lamp (or any other antique). One should collect antiques because they are beautiful and delight the heart, and not because they represent a financial investment. Only those pieces that are really very old and museum-quality, perhaps by a famous hand, or even unique, and that many collectors (or museums) are willing to invest a fortune in after all, serve as investments. In my opinion, the kerosene/paraffin lamps do not belong to such objects that double their value after 10 years, to put it bluntly.
It is their easy changeability through multiple, amateurish replacement of the lamp parts in the course of their lamp life that undermined the antique status of the kerosene/paraffin lamps early on. An Art Nouveau vase from the house of Gallé cannot be altered; it is an authentic piece of exquisite craftsmanship from its birth, and it will remain a desirable object for many generations to come, because it was and will remain what it is from the very beginning: a Gallé vase... The same can be said of many other collector's items, once they retain their status as desirable antiques for generations. Kerosene/paraffin lamps have to fight for this status, but unfortunately there are very few authentic examples. The vast majority of the pieces on offer have very often been altered, fragmented, anonymised, in other words, frankly, downright "screwed up". In my humble opinion, only very few kerosene/paraffin lamps of selected beauty and clearly verifiable provenance can serve as a financial investment. The rest, which is within the financial reach of the "average consumer", can be very beautiful (or only become beautiful under expert, benevolent hands), but these pieces are hardly suitable as investments.
The real collector tends to collect only to have beautiful pieces around him and to enjoy them. The passion for collecting stops when you have dollar signs in your eyes, because you want to earn a lot of money with the piece you have just acquired.
My Personal Criteria for Valuing
As described quite clearly above, the valuation of a lamp is rather a subjective, personal matter. Every collector has his own personal criteria for valuation, and his collection reflects his preferences and interests.
Here I would like to present my personal criteria, which in my opinion play a non-negligible role in the overall value of a kerosene/paraffin lamp. In doing so, I must emphasise that I am more fascinated and attracted by the artistic or artisanal attributes of a lamp than by its technical refinements. Any lamp (and also any glass shade) that requires a great deal of "high-quality handicraft" is, in my eyes, more valuable than lamps that perhaps carry a rare, unusual burner. I don't want to establish a maxim with this; "exceptions prove the rule" is what they say. I also have a few lamps that are not high-quality lamps from an artistic-aesthetic point of view, but which are rare examples in terms of burning technology (e.g. the Triumph lamp L.333 by Ehrich & Graetz with an extraordinary flame disc that has probably almost always been lost).
I try to list here the characteristics that mark valuable lamps for me:
All very finely hand-painted porcelains, glasses and majolica vessels are the results of the highest artistic as well as craftsmanship work. For this, an artist must first make a design, painters must paint the design with the finest brush strokes on the corresponding objects, mould makers must make moulds for relief majolica objects or glass vessels, the painted objects must be fired again and then glazed, and so on. Only those who have become somewhat familiar with such craft techniques can understand the immense amount of work behind them.
Very labour-intensive finishing techniques such as enamel painting with the ancient techniques of cloisonné and champlevé on metal bodies result in very high-quality products that would also have to be valued higher than metal objects cast or embossed in the mould.
Glass fonts and glass shades decorated with manually applied cut patterns or engravings, or refined with elaborate, multi-stage etchings, are also high-value products. Each of these pieces must be individually worked on by a glass cutter or etched in stages by experts in the art of etching. Even the less valuable products made of pressed glass require artistically and technically demanding preparatory work by an artist for the design and a mould maker for the corresponding pressing mould.
The cast zinc lamps, which are rather disdained by many collectors, also require extensive preparatory work for the artistic design as well as for the manufacturing processes of the metallic casting moulds, which are not to be neglected. High-quality cast zinc lamps often consist of several parts. In some cases, handles are also artfully cast and attached onto them. All these parts have to be manually deburred individually after casting, i.e. the casting seams of the moulds are ground off and surfaces are smoothed. These parts are then electroplated with brass (“bronzing”) and assembled.
These criteria can be summarised as follows: The more handicraft steps a lamp requires, the more valuable it is. Techniques that are not only very labour-intensive but also valuable from an artistic point of view, such as hand-painting or glass cutting, are to be valued more highly. For some lamps in my collection, so much handicraft work was realised that they could either hardly be produced today or would become disproportionately expensive.
Stocktaking of a Lamp
In addition to the value criteria described above, however, other, much more mundane points are also important, the observance of which is not easy for everyone. These criteria are more concerned with the inventory of the individual lamp parts and their condition. Damaged, non-existent, rarely obtainable, amateurishly and improperly assembled parts of a lamp are more important in this context than its artistic craftsmanship value. I will briefly outline them here:
Is the lamp complete, i.e. is everything that belongs to a high-quality lamp, such as the burner, glass chimney, shade, etc., also present? And if present, are they stylistically and authentically appropriate? If not, can these parts be found and purchased?
Was the lamp possibly electrified in former times? Are there any holes on the metal or stone base that have been drilled for electrical cables? Is there any other damage to the lamp (e.g. drilled metal fonts, destroyed glass fonts, partially sawn-off, soldered burners, attached electrical switches) as a result of electrification?
Is the cast zinc lamp offered complete with its glass font? The hidden glass fonts are sometimes broken or removed to electrify the lamp. Is there a possibility to find such a font that fits well in the dimensions? In some other cast zinc lamps, the lid of the font is not original to the lamp because it has a different pattern of decoration. In original matching zinc cast lamps, the decorative patterns of the lid and the rest of the lamp body are matching. Can you see this in the photos of the lamp on offer?
Are there any broken, bent, dented areas on the metal bodies? Is it possible to repair them? Are there cracks, chipped areas, broken parts in the ceramic lamp parts?
What about the colour finish of the lamp? Is the bronzing of the zinc castings still reasonably intact or is it badly rubbed off? Is there a lot of verdigris on brass parts? Is the artistically applied patina paint on the sculptures still present or does it need to be touched up?
If a lamp is offered with a burner, what kind of burner is it? Large burners very often require flame discs specially made for them. Is the flame disc present? Does the burner basket have damage such as dents or even holes for electric cables? Is the wick knob undamaged and functioning? Does the burner consist of original matching parts or was it improperly assembled from different burners?
Some rare burners require a specially designed, rarely found glass chimney. Do you have such a chimney to hand? Some Central Vulkan burners are offered without wicks. The wicks required for them are even rarer than the burner itself. Will one be able to get the wick somewhere? This also applies without restriction to the transport wicks of the Sonnenbrenner of R. Ditmar.
The vast majority of the lamps are offered without a shade, at least on eBay, although a matching shade belongs to the lamp. If this is the case, what kind of shade goes with the lamp? Is it possible to find or purchase a shade that matches the style, or even one that is made to a high standard?
Provenance / History
Lastly, other criteria that have to do with the provenance of the lamp also come into consideration. Is the lamp identifiable as the product of a famous manufacturer? Is it even quite famous and desirable for that reason alone? If so, does the lamp still have the original burner of the same manufacture or does it have to be obtained first? Is the lamp illustrated in catalogues? Will it be possible to complete the lamp according to the catalogue picture?
Does the lamp have the signature of an artist who designed either the entire lamp or at least the sculpture of the lamp? Does the lamp bear the mark of a foundry or quality sign of a particular guild?
Does the lamp have a known history? Has the lamp possibly stood in the house of a famous person? Was it perhaps part of a noble, princely house? Was it part of the collection of a famous collector? Is the lamp a gift from someone we particularly love and appreciate, or is it even an heirloom from our own family, and thus invaluable in its sentimental value?
Questions upon questions. Some of them will not be relevant, some of them hardly answerable. But all these criteria (some more, some less, some not applicable, others perhaps quite important) play a role in the subjective valuation of a lamp. Each collector must make his own prioritisation of these and possibly other criteria and act accordingly.