You Light Up My Life…

As a small antiques dealer, I've sold lots of antique and vintage oil and candle lamps and lanterns. Before electricity became widely available, homes, businesses and workplaces relied on flames to light the way. I've always been drawn to oil lamps in particular because of the huge variety of designs that evolved over the centuries. From the crudest clay whale oil examples of ancient history to elaborate Victorian styles — even entire chandeliers and streetlamps — I find them fascinating. Unlike lots of antiques we collect to merely admire, oil lamps and lanterns are still useful for us today. If the power goes out, an oil lamp throws off a lot more light with its reflective glass globe than a single candlestick. They're also wonderful to use when entertaining and dining al fresco. I can't tell you how many times I've lit candles outside for that wonderful outside dining ambience only to have the breeze blow them out. I finally figured out that I needed to at least put a hurricane globe around candles or just use oil lamps. A few weeks ago, I brought home from an auction a couple of lanterns. A pair of classic looking Dietz oil lanterns in incredibly good shape. Dietz lanterns are very collectible, and they have a rich history. Typically, I'd always thought of them as railroad lanterns but when I researched the history of Dietz lanterns, I learned the Dietz company produced lots of different artificial light devices. According to "Lanterns That Lit The World: The R.E. Dietz Company" by Thomas Hunter at Onondaga Historical Association (www.cnyhistory.org) in 1840, 22 year old Robert Edwin Dietz bought a Brooklyn lamp and oil shop. He and his brother, William, called it Dietz, Brother and Company. They started out making candle lanterns and soon expanded into sperm whale oil lamps, chandeliers and girandoles (a fancier word for candelabra, usually embellished with hanging crystals). In 1855, three more brothers joined them and it became Dietz and Company. They built a large factory and began producing a patented flat wick burner that used coal oil for fuel — much cheaper than sperm whale oil. The company went through various trials and tribulations over the years including brother, Robert, leaving and partnering with Absalom Smith to form a new company, Dietz & Smith. That relationship soured and Robert bought him out and formed R.E. Dietz. Two factory fires in 1871 and 1897 destroyed their facilities and to avoid going out of business, they merged with Steam Gauge and Lantern Company of Syracuse. In 1906, Dietz began making acetylene gas headlights and taillights for automobiles and trucks. Flash forward to 1956 and then company president, Gerry Dietz, established R.E. Dietz in Hong Kong and added the Visi-flasher road marker and soon became the largest manufacturer of truck lighting and hazard warning lights. In 1971, even the Dietz lantern production moved to Hong Kong and the Syracuse facility was closed. I was cleaning up the two lanterns I'd bought and found a "Made in Hong Kong" label on the bottom of one. So, while not true antiques (at least 100 years old), they've got some vintage creed to them. Since 1982, Dietz lanterns have continued to be produced in Jiangsu, China. While some decry the quality as inferior to the American-made models, at least Dietz is still shining the way after all these years.