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| What Cheer Tool Co II GB Star Marking | WHAT CHEER TOOL CO. WITH DRIP RING - Tin drivers lamp with preformed brass top and brass shield on spout, 3 in. tall to lid, marked in trade mark shield on font THE WHAT CHEER TOOL CO. WHAT CHEER IOWA with stars among STAR, brass shield on spout marked with a large star with G.B. in center confirming that Grier Bros. made the lamp for the What Cheer Tool Co private stamping; ex-Henry Pohs collection (The What Cheer Tool Co. started business in the early 1880s under the name Thompson, Walker and Thompson as a manufacturer of coal drills and picks. Headquartered in What Cheer, Iowa, the company continued to expand its drill business and in the late 1890s, one of the Thompsons left the business and the company was renamed the What Cheer Drill and Miner's Tool Co. with Alexander Walker as president. Walker held 17 patents for coal drilling machines and the company was marketing its products to every coal mining state in the U.S. Sometime during this time period, the company included a very hard to find oilwick lamp marked Thompson and Walker in its product line. Additional wick lamps with the What Cheer Tool Co. marking as shown in this photo appeared as well. It's unknown whether the company manufactured these lamps or if they were private label marks on lamps from another manufacturer. It appears that at least some of the marked lamps were produced by the Grier Bros. due to the significant similarities. An article by Dave Johnson makes this point through comparable photographs. The company also listed a What Cheer carbide cap lamp product sometime in the late teens that was a private label stamping of a Grier Bros. made lamp. The What Cheer Tool Co. also distributed a miner's lamp oil cadger equipped with a swivel belt loop on the back side. The front side is marked with a red and white What Cheer Tool Co. paper label applied over a raised logo lettering of "Diamond Trade Mark." A photo of this cadger in my collection is shown in Miscellaneous Mining Items. As the company's business in mining drills declined in the early 1920s, the What Cheer firm entered the automobile business with seemingly low success. The company ceased operations and went out of business in 1926. See Johnson, Eureka #5, pp 12-13; Clemmer, American Miners' Carbide Lamps, p 91 and Steinberg, Mining Artifact Collector #5, p 15-16) |  Original Image |
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