Restoring Dignity
My online vintage lighting store.
I purchased a 1920s pan-style fixture. It had been redone about a decade ago. New turn-key sockets were installed with cheap plastic keys. The wiring was plastic. And the thin chain was from Home Depot. The fixture has also been polished bright and lacquered.
Oh, the horror.
The fixture had lost its dignity.
I installed a matched set of 1920s Webber turn-key sockets, new cloth-covered wiring, and period-correct chain of the right scale and shape.
Dignity…restored.
My online vintage lighting store.
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Ross, I bought a similar lighting fixture at an auction( with period glass shades). How do you polish the metal?
Your lighting fixtures are always top notch! The one pictured above is gorrrrrgeous!
Splendid! This just stunning!
Another lovely I wish I had a house good enough for…
Turn key sockets. Is that what they are called.
I need to find two.
I have my Mother’s old milk glass dresser lamps that she was going to throw away because the shades were dirty and broken and the lights would flicker or not turn on or suddenly turn off.
The shades were just cheap paper that slipped over hurricane shades.
I took them apart, cleaned them and rewired them with new cords and replaced the plain hurricanes with fancy ones needed no additional shades.
I only had one problem. The original sockets had keys you turn. Not the regular ones I see above but something that looked like an actual key. I did this over 50 years ago and stupidly did not keep the sockets as now I suspect I could have unscrewed those fancy bits and put them on something newer. I still remember what they looked like. I’d know them if I saw them.
Now I’d like to find a way to replace the sockets they now with the turn key and those fancy keys.
What do I do? Can I find modern versions or must I look for a pair of vintage parts?
I really love these lamps because they were my Mother’s and I grew up seeing them on her dresser. She didn’t think anything of them because they were hand me downs from a relative or something, but I love them and I’d like to restore those missing turn keys.
Ah. Never mind. Now that I know what I’m looking for I found something that will do. Not exactly like the originals but it’s what’s available, what I can afford and close enough. Plus modern bits so no fear of electrical fires. Not that the lamps aren’t safe now but they’ll just be safer and almost exactly as they were.
These are milk glass lamps, likely from the 30s or 40s and not worth much but I love them and that is all that matters to me.