Category: Uncategorized

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Friemann & Wolf Pieler Lamp No. 702

This particular model of Pieler from Friemann & Wolf is believed to of been targeting the North American market.  The corrugated bonnet was very popular in America, but saw little use in Europe.  The No. 702 is the most advanced Pieler that Friemann & Wolf made.  Bonneted, with lock, flame snuffer, and igniter.  Since the serial number is 1246482, and that the igniter is model no. 1907, this lamp is probably circa 1908 to 1914. I have seen this lamp still listed in a Friemann & Wolf catalog from the 1930’s.

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Biography

I have been buying, selling, and collecting miner’s lamps for about 25 years.  I can still remember the first miner’s lamp I bought that got me hooked on collecting.  It was a carbide lamp that cost $6 in Sierra City, California.  Of course, I learned later  that the lamp was a mixture of Auto-Lite and Justrite parts!! I think we all have a story like that.

My personal experience in the mining industry is not measured in years, but weeks.  When I graduated from the University of Arizona in 1984 with a degree in Mining Engineering, the copper industry had almost 50% unemployment and wasn’t in need of my valuable services.  So, I took a job with a scrap metal recycling company owned by a steel company that utilized 100% scrap to make new steel.  I became a modern-day “Fred Sanford”.  My main claim to fame was the engineering and construction of 3 large automobile shredding facilities.  Automobile shredders are basically hammer mills, but instead of rock, junk cars were fed into them.  The cars would be shredded into fist size pieces, and a downstream system would separate out the ferrous and non-ferrous metal, and non-recyclable material.  The machines I installed ate 1-2 cars PER MINUTE.  

Jennifer Findley and myself with US Ambassador Pete Peterson.  Photo taken in Ho Chi Minh City (Sai Gon) at the new Consulate located where the old US Embassy once stood.  Pete Peterson spent several years as a POW in the infamous “Hanoi Hilton”. 

After spending over 12 years in the scrap business, I decided to go to graduated school on a full-time basis to earn an MBA.  Since  graduating in May of 1999, I have been to Vietnam twice on special market research projects to investigate future trade opportunities.

Collecting has change significantly.  Back in the 1970’s, it was very difficult to find information about miner’s lamps. It was also very hard to find lamps.  Back then, collectors did not sell duplicate lamps but only traded.  This is because cash prices on lamps did not reflect their true value.  Needless to say, trading was difficult because you had to find something the other collector didn’t have, which was usually something you didn’t have in your collection either.  Because the prices now reflect the true value of lamps, more and more specimens now show up.  With the advent of Ebay, it is obvious that mining items are not as rare as we thought they were.  Its just a matter of price now…….

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Mine Locomotive Benzene Safety Lamp, Wilhelm Seippel

Early mine locomotive benzene safety lamp.  Made by Wilhelm Seippel, Bochum, Germany.  This early lamp is fitted with a model 1897 Friemann & Wolf igniter.  Notice the glass lens is beveled.  Circa 1900.

Click on the image below to see a carbide mine locomotive safety lamp:

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Clowes’ Hydrogen Oil Lamp

Although the Clowes’ Hydrogen Oil Lamp should probably be categorized in the Ashworth-Hepplewhite-Gray section, the uniqueness and ingenuity of this lamp calls for its own special section.

The need to be able to accurately measure levels of firedamp in minute concentrations became more and more of a necessity as ventilation  became more complicated in deepening mines.  The standard Davy lamp fell way short of being a useful instrument for measuring low levels of firedamp.  Towards the end of the 1800’s, several people in England and in Europe were working on the problem utilizing the basics of the Davy lamp.  The Pieler Lamp was introduced in Germany about 1885, and was probably the first commercially made device that could accurately measure small amounts of firedamp.  While used extensively in Europe, it had its drawbacks and didn’t see much use in England.

On March 29, 1892,  James Ashworth of Morely, and Frank Clowes of Nottingham filed a patent application (No. 6051) for “Improvements in Miner’s Safety Lamps”.  Basically, the patent was covering the idea of installing a hydrogen gas burning device in any ordinary safety lamp to be utilized in gas testing.  Ashworth and Clowes were capitalizing on the fact that a hydrogen flame gives a hot non-luminous flame, and therefore a large testing flame can be used and larger and plainer caps obtained for easy reading.  The patent covers two methods of delivering hydrogen to the burner: 1) Compressed hydrogen contained in a separate vessel or in a receptacle attached to the lamp, and 2) hydrogen directly from generating device.  It is interesting to note that while the patent drawings show these devices on Ashworth-Hepplewhite-Gray lamps, there is no mention of any particular lamp in the patent text.

What evolved into commercial use based on the patent was a modified Ashworth-Hepplewhite-Gray lamp with a detachable external cylinder for compressed hydrogen.  The lamp would use an oil flame for detecting methane down to 2 1/2%.  Below that, the hydrogen gas was turned on via the cylinder valve and the burner lit by the oil flame.  The oil flame would then be extinguished, and the hydrogen flame would be standardized to 0.4 inch tall.  The tips of the blue caps would be observed in comparison to the rungs on a vertical ladder scale.  Very accurate results could be obtained in atmospheres from 0.25% to 3% firedamp.  After the test was completed, the oil wick was ignited using the hydrogen flame, then the hydrogen gas was turned off and the cylinder detached.

The Clowes lamp was used from about 1892 to the 1920’s.  The lamp did not get approval to be used in “safety-lamp” mines when the approval system for mine lamps was in place. 

The lamp had many advantages over the Pieler lamp.  First, it could be used in atmospheres that contained above 2 1/2% firedamp.  Second, it could tolerate higher air current velocities safely.  Third, it could be used as a source of light.

To see two examples from my collection, click on the thumbnails below.

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Ashworth-Hepplewhite-Gray Lamps

Click to enlarge.

The Ashworth-Hepplewhite-Gray lamp, also know as the A-H-G or Gray lamp, is one of the earliest safety lamps designed for firedamp testing.  The basic design of the lamp includes hollow standards running vertically for admitting air from the top or near the base, and feeding the flame in an underdraft fashion.  Through utilizing shutters, the lamp can admit air from only the top of the lamp for testing of thin layers of gas close to the roof.  While just being used as a light source,  the top shutter would be closed while the shutters towards the bottom of the lamp would be opened. This would provide excellent illumination (about .75 candlepower) and safe in sir currents up to 6,000 feet per minute.

Click to enlarge.

The A-H-G lamp saw many years of service. There were many, many variations made.  Most have 4 standards, but some were made with 3.  Most were made of brass, some were made of aluminum, and some were brass and aluminum. The “Gray-Beard” lamp incorporated a Beard-Mackie indicator with the A-H-G design.

“Gray-Beard” Lamp. Click to enlarge.

Most of these lamps were made England by Davis of Derby, but J. Cooke, Teale, and Akroyd and Best all made them too.  In the US, American Safety Lamp & Supply and Davis of Baltimore made them.  I have not been able to identify any makers on the Continent, though I suspect that there must of been at least one maker.  Gray lamps where used from the 1880’s till the 1920’s.

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The Chesneau Lamp

The Chesneau lamp was introduced in 1892 by M. Chesneau, president of the French Fire Damp Commission.  Essentially, Chesneau’s invention was a Pieler lamp with many improvements to overcome the weaknesses and hazards of Pieler’s design. 

 Chesneau’s lamp is made heavier duty for rough service, and has a fixed bonnet that allows it to perform safely in air currents up to 2000 ft. per minute.  Like the Pieler, the lamp burns alcohol and has a tall gauze surrounding the burner.  Instead of using a conical shield around the burner, the Chesneau use a cylinder as a standard for adjusting the flame.  Unlike a Pieler, the Chesneau has a shutter to control the underflow of air to the burner. (Click here for assembly drawing of Arras Chesneau)

Gas measuring is identical to the Pieler. The elongation of the flame while in a firedamp atmosphere is observed through a mica window, and measured with scale attached to the bonnet.  The lamp is also fixed with a sliding shield that can be adjusted to the exact height of the cap, which permits a more accurate reading.  To more easily read the caps, copper nitrate and ethylene chloride are dissolved in the wood alcohol to give the flame a greenish tint.

In the Chesneau, as in the PieIer, the accuracy of the test result is depended on the condition of the cotton being the same as when the lamp was standardized.  A great improvement  is that the Chesneau only requires 30 to 90 seconds to cool down between tests, where the Pieler requires 20 to 30 minutes to eliminate the artificial  atmosphere of alcohol vapor.

Click on the thumbnail below to view a Chesneau from my collection!!

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Brief History of the Miner’s Flame Safety Lamp

While the introduction of the steam engine for dewatering and hoisting had led to the deepening of the collieries in England, the ventilation technology to control the increased dangers of methane fell behind. In the early 1800’s, several large colliery explosions in the North of England had killed many pit men.  Attention was called for the need of a flame lamp that would not ignite “firedamp”.

Although there is a dispute to  who invented the “first” miner’s flame  lamp that was safe to use in fiery mines, the success of the flame safety lamp was a culmination of the principles discovered by Dr. William R. Clanny, Sir Humphrey Davy, and George Stephenson.  All three men worked independently on the problem at about the same time, and all had some knowledge of the other’s work.

The principle of isolating the flame of the lamp was evolved by Dr. Clanny in 1813.  Clanny’s first lamp designs involved enclosing the flame, and pressurizing the lamp via bellows that would use water reservoirs to isolate the flame.  The lamp was rather clumsy, and saw no practical use in the mines.  But the feature of a glass window would be later a common feature on safety lamps.

At about the same time, Sir Humphrey Davy was performing several experiments of his own for the development of a safety lamp.  In 1815, Davy discovered that if two vessels were filled with explosive gas, they might be connected together by a narrow tube, and the gas in one of the chambers could be exploded without transmitting the explosion to the adjoining chamber.  This meant that a flame in a lamp, fed mine air through small orifices, would not ignite the surrounding air of the mine. 

Davy’s further experiments found that mesh-holes of fine metallic gauze acted the same way as narrow tubes.  The adjacent drawing depicts Davy’s principle utilizing a Bunsen-burner.  The flame will burn on one side of the gauze without igniting the gas on the under side of the gauze.  This is because the gauze will dissipate heat fast enough that the temperature of the gas beneath is unable to rise to the point of ignition. 

Davy built a lamp that totally enclosed the flame with a cylinder of gauze.  While it did not give off much light, it was success in minimizing, although not eliminating, explosions from flame lamps.  Davy’s wire gauze principle was used in almost every type of flame safety lamp that was developed for near 200 years. 

While Clanny and Davy were working on their safety lamps, George Stephenson (who would later go on to invent the steam locomotive) was working on his safety lamp.  In 1815 , Stephenson was an enginewright at the Killingworth colliery near New Castle.  Stephenson started developing and testing lamps designed on 2 principles: 1)”burnt air” (carbonic gas, CO2) would prevent transmission of explosions. 2) The velocity of burning firedamp was slow.   So, if  an air draft opposite to the direction of combustion of great enough velocity could be created, transmission of explosion would not occur. Stephenson’s third lamp was a success, and with modifications was successfully used in coal mines mainly in the North of England.

There has been a long dispute to as who really invented the first “safety lamp”.  Clanny, Davy, and Stephenson each contributed to the evolution of the safety lamp.  To summarize their contributions:

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Links

The following list contains links to other collectors of mine lighting devices and mining related artifacts.  If you would like me to include your link, send me an E-mail!

Manfred Stutzer-Collector of miner’s flame safety lamps located in Germany.  Manfred has one of the top collections in Europe, and his homepage contains a lot of neat information and photographs.

Dr. Hartwig Büttner-German collector of frog lamps.  Hartwig has many excellent photographs of Harz type frog lamps in his homepage.

Marcel Humbert-Labeaumaz-French collector of miner’s lamps.  Marcel has good historical information and pictures.  Much of the text is in French.

Andy Martin and Tino Romero-Excellent source of information on blasting cap tins.

Rauleigh Webb-Australian collector.  His homepage is an excellent source of information about carbide lamps from down-under.

Len Gaska-US collector of all types of mine lamps.

National Association of Mining History Organisations-Formed in 1979 at act as the national body for mining history in the UK and Ireland.  They have about 50 member organizations, including societies, museums, firms, etc.  

The Kentucky Coal Mining Museum-The Kentucky Coal Mining Museum is located in the former coal camp town of Benham in Harlan County Kentucky.

National Coal Mining Museum/England-England’s official coal museum.  A must see when in England.

Sir Humphry Davy-Short biography on the inventor of the Davy lamp.

Sir Humphry Davy-Another short biography of Davy.

Karl Heupel-German collector specializing in German carbide lamps from Siegerland,  Nordrhein-Westfalen.  Lots of nice photos, and information on German mining museums.

Souterrains-One of the largest databases on man-made underground information on and off the Internet.  Information about underground mining and tunneling from all over the world.

Schäfer Versand-Dealer in high quality reproductions of miner’s safety lamps made by Thomas & Williams, Friemann & Wolf, and The Protector Lamp Company.

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Mine Locomotive Carbide Safety Lamp,  Wilhelm Seippel

Marked “Wilhelm Sieppel, Bochum” (Germany).  This particular model must of been a favorite of the manufacture because it is one of only three models of safety lamps pictured on the cover of Sieppel’s 1908 50yr. Anniversary Special Catalog.  The  igniter assembly, in the middle of the lower picture, takes the old paper caps. The water vessel in this lamp is actually submerged in the carbide canister.  The water control is regulated through back pressure of acetylene gas. On the bottom of the lamp, there is a knob that is part of a regulating device that controls the flow of gas to the burner.  Magnetic lock.  Circa 1910.  This specimen is unfired.  

Click image below for benzene locomotive lamp:

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Justrite Sign

1915 Metal Advertisement Sign

Three-color lithograph.  Fully embossed metal.  Measures 11 1/2″ by 16 1/2″.  Great for framing!

$49, postage included.  To order, send email to davegresko@minerslamps.net