Topic: Interesting car boot find

[Keith Mick]

Thought this might be of interest.
Came across this glass bell shaped item on a local car boot. As it was cheap and without any idea what it was I took it home to do some digging. It's hand blown, showing striations and has a folded rim. It has some age showing signs of wear.
After some research I discovered that it's a smoke deflector for use with oil lamps. The idea being it would be suspended above the oil lamp and help dissipate any smoke and stop staining to the ceiling above the lamp. It's approx 19.5cm tall and 16cm across the base.
I'm thinking Victorian or early 20th Century, if anyone can narrow this time period a bit it would help me.
Had no clue when I first spotted this, its amazing what you come across,
Keith M

[chopin-liszt]

Rather an unusual find, well done. 
I did know what it was, but have hardly ever seen any. I suspect not too many have survived.

[glassobsessed]

The soot builds up on them instead of your room, being made of glass might be an advantage to clean. The shapes can vary, I have one that is fairly flat and could double as a big saucepan lid.

John

[Keith Mick]

Hi thanks for the replies. I have a couple of books, old copies of catalogues which feature amongst many other things oil lamps. Deflectors do appear apparently as part of the purchase, on a lamp stand perhaps and whilst some look to be glass others could well have been made of metal. These catalogues don't appear to sell the deflectors individually, I'm thinking mine could have been sold as such, a more general purpose design. Either way none of the ones featured have a similar shape to mine so the time period may differ slightly.
Cheers
Keith M