Hey there guys, I found this lamp in an old smokehouse I was tearing down and come to find out it is a solid hunk of copper! Through and through, no other metals present. It weighs literally 6.5 pounds, and it originally had a round, green cloth wire cord. There was no plug on it, but the original harp (which was brass) and the original glass marble finial (glass and steel, which was rusty) was there. I spent the better part of 5 hours sanding starting with 320 and working my way up to 2000 grit, then starting hitting it on the sisal wheel on my buffer with emery compound and ended up on the denim wheel with red rouge compound. It really came back to life, and the casting is very smooth now and polished well. I hit it with Nikolas lacquer too so the copper won't tarnish for many, many years. I put a solid copper bulb socket on it and a new brass harp with the original restored finial and a restored bakelite plug and with an Edison bulb it lit up beautifully. I currently have a Tiffany style said on it, although I do not know what would be period correct for what I suspect was the 20's. Oh, btw, the different layers of metal are soldered, along with the little brass feet on the bottom. Beautiful solder job too, very little if any extra solder on the outside that is visible.

That said, how much is this thing worth? I have never seen a lamp like this, and I have been able to find anything that came close to it in weight or build style online. I have done tons of Google searches to no avail. Any help would be appreciated, I just want to know if it is worth more as scrap or whether I have a $250-$300 lamp on my hands. I imagine it is from the 20's or 30's with the cloth cord, although it may be older that that. I doubt I would sell it even for $250, it is so unique in its build and weight. No one I know has ever seen such a thing that small that weighs that much.

Below are some pics of the lamp before I started on it, and after I had sanded it most of the way to where I wanted it before polishing on the buffer.

Here is the lamp finished with and without a shade.

The finished lamp is absolutely gorgeous, and I personally think it's an awesome restoration.. HOWEVER, many antique collectors or dealers would say that you destroyed the lamp by removing ALL the "patina". But nice job afaic!

Nice to see you here, Corey!  I'm Clayton from the Fan Club. Indeed, you did an excellent restoration!

nice!
not sure about collectibility pre restoration but i generally dont "restore" radios fans,ect unless trashed.
and stuff i mod with leds is dirt common.
i would have done a bit of research and if it was not rare,historicly significant,ect i would have done the same.

Very neat! I know some people like the "patina" but in this case I think it looks better polished up.

It really looks like brand new, as just when bought century ago...

That looks awesome. I wonder if there's something that can be done to it to prevent the patina from reoccurring?

A lacquer, but that will look more artificial...

Sorry fellas, I have been gone a while! And yes, I did lacquer it, but with the best stuff available, you really don't know it's there. It is the same stuff they use on brass instruments. We use it on all the fans we restore as well.

The shape of the lamp pre restoration was not good. The wiring was ruined, there was no bulb socket present, the harp was trashed, and dirt robbers had built on the base and the patina underneath was awful. Patina will return to copper though, that is the beautiful thing about it, and even lacquered the residual moisture will tarnish it in a few years. Can see that on all the brass fans that are restored a few years later.

That said, the collectibility of this seems to be very low from what everyone has mentioned. It is definitely unique though, and I doubt there is another one like it. I spent a good bit of time researching and never found anything like it. Makes me wonder if it was a very small operation that made it locally.