1908 – 1910 Footwarmer

This lantern Footwarmer was made by the Lantern Footwarmer Co. in the few short years they were making them. Since this company bought their lanterns wholesale, they didn’t make any lantern parts, instead modified the lanterns for use in the Footwarmer. This included cutting slots into the globe plate of the Victor. The fit and finish of these lanterns were okay, but not great, especially compared to the later OL&L version.

This lantern has been my most intensive restoration I’ve done. It came in rather sad shape, the lantern was severely rusted, the wood was basically split in two, missing most of the brass nails, etc. I carefully disassembled it, after doing so I realized the lantern itself could not be saved sadly, it was just too rusted. Thankfully, a Dietz Victor isn’t the hardest thing to find. I could not replace the globe plate, so it is still original. I removed the rust from the globe plate, cleaned the oxidation off the copper and gave it a light polish, keeping some of the tarnish.

The wooden base was entirely split in two, so I glued it back together with carpenter glue, not much else I could do. The wooden base had 4 ‘feet’ at each corner, 2 of which were missing, a local craft store had wooden balls, but none the right size, so I got some a little larger than needed and sanded them down to approximately the right size, I also burned them slightly to give them an older look.

To replace the missing nails, I found brass picture hanging nails, and shaped them to closely match the original. After finding a new Victor, I put it into place, reattached the globe plate, and put the nails back in, completing this long and interesting restoration.

While not perfect, this lantern was basically wrecked, so seeing it in the shape it’s in now is such an accomplishment for me. It was also well out of my realm of knowledge, it was quite a fun project to learn with.

You can click on the photos below to see larger clearer images.