Vintage Oil Lanterns

If having three makes a collection, then I guess I have a collection of these vintage oil lanterns. I've heard them referred to as Railroad Lanterns. Here's the three I have:

A copper colored one...

 A red one...

And one that I painted black a couple of years ago...

I used Amy Howard's One-Step Paint in black to paint this lantern black years ago. It has held up well over the years.

I like to dress the lanterns up with faux nests and birds. These two  lanterns have ribbon and beaded candle rings to pretty them up.

All the lanterns were missing the glass and were no longer functional when I bought them years ago. 

I'm going to paint the red lantern too, so I cleaned up the dust around the oil well to prep it for painting. One-Step Paint adheres to metal really well, as I'm sure you've heard me say before.

It's interesting how these old lanterns worked. It appears the oil goes in the well at the bottom, the wick runs down into the oil well and soaks up the oil, and the top of the wick that sticks out burns. 

That little circular knob in the middle is used to turn the wick up as it burns down.

I can't even imagine what it was like to burn oil in a lamp or lantern inside the house or even carry a burning lantern around outside, can you? We are so spoiled in the 21st Century.

Thanks for dropping by!