Carbide Cap Lamps/Roof Bottom

Carbide Cap Lamps

Roof Bottom.jpg - W. D. ROOF - Extremely unusual brass cap lamp, marked W. D. ROOF. on tank top, conical screw-on brass reflector 1 5/8 in. deep with 2 5/8 in. outer dia., cast iron base, 3 7/8 in. high to top of water door, 2 in. base dia., complete with felt retainer, unfired condition (The history of this lampis at best unclear. An article in Henry Pohs’ Fall 1990 The Underground Lamp Post (Vol. V No. 5) first mentions the Roof lamp. That article offers a story that early in the 1900s an itinerant tinsmith roamed the coalfields of Illinois, Indiana, and Kentucky where he repaired carbide lamps. Eventually he began to make a carbide lamp of his own style and design shown here. It is not known if his name was Roof or if he stamped the name of the new lamp owner on the lamp’s top to make it a more personal possession. The cast iron base makes the lamp quite heavy and totally unlike any other carbide cap lamp, presumably to make the bottom indestructible. The brass conical reflector also makes the lamp extremely unusual. There is no mistaking the Roof lamp for any other carbide.)

Roof Bottom | W. D. ROOF - Extremely unusual brass cap lamp, marked W. D. ROOF. on tank top, conical screw-on brass reflector 1 5/8 in. deep with 2 5/8 in. outer dia., cast iron base, 3 7/8 in. high to top of water door, 2 in. base dia., complete with felt retainer, unfired condition (The history of this lamp is at best unclear. An article in Henry Pohs’ Fall 1990 The Underground Lamp Post (Vol. V No. 5) first mentions the Roof lamp. That article offers a story that early in the 1900s an itinerant tinsmith roamed the coalfields of Illinois, Indiana, and Kentucky where he repaired carbide lamps. Eventually he began to make a carbide lamp of his own style and design shown here. It is not known if his name was Roof or if he stamped the name of the new lamp owner on the lamp’s top to make it a more personal possession. The cast iron base makes the lamp quite heavy and totally unlike any other carbide cap lamp, presumably to make the bottom indestructible. The brass conical reflector also makes the lamp extremely unusual. There is no mistaking the Roof lamp for any other carbide.)

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