How to Find Burners for Antique Oil Lamps

Video Transcript

"When talking about these 19th Century oil lamps, we should at least talk a little bit about the burners. Unfortunately, I don't have an early 2 prong burner that comes out of the whale oil. It has two prongs this center and the wick comes right up through the top of each one of those and it is screwed on to this collar. That would have been original to this lamp. What happens over the years, it goes because it is made out of a pewter get worn or burnt or destroyed. So they take them off and a lot of times you will see a whale oil lamp just like this without any burner on it at all. It helps to have the original burner but it is not always there. So we can make alternative choices for these lamps. We can add a burner and wick to it just for show or to use. So this is a number one burner and it comes in two standard sizes, number one and number two. I am trying to see if I have a number two here. I think there is a number two on this lamp right here which is a much larger burner. So two standard sizes to remember, one and two. Usually on the earlier lamps like the whale oil, you will find that they will take a number one burner. On the larger oil lamps like this one, you will see a number two and this is not original. This has a globe that has been put on to it; an early globe but not original to the lamp. You will see a lot of this over the years; they'll change. They lose their original burners so conversions are put on like this so that you can use them and they are also good to display with. That is something to remember. When looking at a lamp, is the lamp an original or has it been changed over the years. For the most part, you will see more of this conversion than the original conversion. "