Lamp of the Day
Royal Fleet “Star and Moon”
I’m not afraid to say that I’m particularly attracted to unusual TV lamps… the more bizarre the better! This one from Royal Fleet certainly fills the bill. As with many such lamps with a juvenile theme, it’s possible that our “Star and Moon” was marketed as a night-light, but the size (and presence of a planter) isn’t really in keeping with the genre. Perhaps a Royal Fleet product catalog will surface one day, but until then we’ll just have to guess as to how it was marketed.
Besides the extraordinary visual aspects, the lamp is unusual in other ways. Its manufacture had to have been more laborious than most, a two-piece mold being insufficient given the structure. The various openings and sheer “three-dimensionality” of the form would have required at least a three-piece mold, and such complexity frequently resulted in a higher percentage of spoils. While those factors could partially explain their rarity, the real mystery is the company itself. The California maker Royal Fleet is a puzzle, and appears to have also gone by the name “Norfleet”. I’ve found this lamp in either white or pink, but I suspect other colors were available as well. Regardless the color, they are brandished with the generous application of gold that Royal Fleet is known for. Sufficiently rare to lack any sort of auction “track record”, I’d say a value of $300 or so isn’t unreasonable.