The TV Lamp Collectors Blog

For those who haven’t heard, Northfield Minnesota is home to the world’s only TV Lamp Museum. Housed in Antiques of Northfield, Carole Christensen has a tremendous number of TV lamps on display, and still others for sale. How many does she have? Carole confided in me a few weeks ago that she’s lost track, “but it’s well over 1000″. Well over indeed! Any TV lamp collector needs to see this spectacular collection. To see more photos and read an interview with Carole, visit my page, Carole Christensen’s TV Lamp Museum.

Antiques of Northfield

416 Division St.

Northfield, Minnesota 55057

507-664-9599

Lonnie Sikes: 1908-2007

The community of Bangs, Texas has lost one of its finest, as Lonnie Sikes passed away at a local nursing home on August 30th. Lonnie was a successful insurance agent and real estate broker, and a significant factor in the towns development. He was also the last surviving founder of the Bangs lamp factory, Texans Incorporated. Lonnie was intelligent, personable, and extremely knowledgeable regarding the history of Bangs. He will be missed.

Services will be held at the Bangs First United Methodist Church, Sunday September 2nd at 3:00 with with Rev. Wayne Lewis officiating. Interment will follow in the Bangs Cemetery.

If you’re a serious mid-century lamp collector, the Texans Incorporated Reunion should definitely be on your calendar. It will be held on November 10th, 2007 at TexasBank in Bangs, Texas, and admission is free. Many former employees and collectors will be in attendance, and all sorts of lamps and historical data will be on display. Further information will be posted as it becomes available, both here and at texansincorporated.com.

See you there!

On-line auction activity has been down recently, probably due in part to postal rate hikes…but don’t get me started on that. Here’s a few TV lamps that have brought hefty prices lately: (more…)

Two “mermaid and shell” TV lamps, similar in size and with many design elements in common…did they originate from the same pottery? That question can be answered with a definite “maybe”. (more…)

When you research the history and products of the various potteries one is faced with many obstacles. Given that approx. 50 years have passed, many of the former employees are gone, taking with them facts that simply cannot be acquired from any other source. But once in a while a product catalog will turn up, and these can be extremely valuable. The catalog page shown above is in the collection of Burdell Hall, undoubtedly the most knowledgeable historian of the Morton, Illinois potteries. None of the products shown are indicated to be lamps, but at least two of them were certainly available as such. (more…)

It’s often hard to determine the maker of a given lamp, particularly when more than one maker used the same design. This sort of “borrowing” took place more often than one might realize, with even the largest potteries getting into the act. I suspect that the reasons behind this are twofold. (this is just me talking…I could be wrong) First of all, the legal climate of the ’50s/’60s was certainly less “lawsuit-happy” than today, and such plagiarism was no doubt easier to get by with. Also, I’ve heard it said by several people in the industry that a “15% rule” applied to copying designs. (more…)

Let’s see…what interesting photo can I share with the TV Lamp Nation?

So what’s going on here? First off, the location is Midwest Pottery in Morton, Illinois. It is sometime in the 1940s, and we see Richard Dunn and Howard Kron working on the first step of building a new kiln…tearing down the old one! (more…)

It’s clear now… I’ve lost my mind. How in the heck can I maintain a blog when I’m already running two websites (that would be tvlamps.net and texansinc.com), researching lamps/pottery, dealing in vintage lamps, etc? Well I’ll tell ya, it’s a simple matter of obsession. I’m completely eat-up with mid-century TV lamps…and I apologize to no one. All this stuff keeps me off the streets, makes a little (very little) money, and satisfies my three basic cravings: (more…)