I have this lamp...

Looks like an old hurricane lamp that someone transformed into an incandescent lamp. Would look better with a bigger bulb or perhaps one of the flicker type bulbs that look like candle flames. Hope you had a great Christmas Bob!

 

Looks like a lamp to me. I think you nailed it in the thread title. :rockon:

 

Have you tried rubbing it and making a wish?


(when it's not lit of course )

 

I suspect it's a DIY conversion - the crude base - of an old gas lamp...
the brass piece -- I assume it is solid -- would be high up on
a kerosene/oil lamp, above the reservoir making it top heavy,
and liable to overturning, a major no-no.

(My family had kerosene lamps at our summer place in Maine up
to the late 50s. The possibility that one of the kids would overturn
one by accident was a source of great and constant anxiety to my
Mum and Grandmother.)

I have no direct experience with gas lamps and assumed that they
were always mounted overhead or from the wall. Some Googling
shows otherwise:

Bare gas lamp burner:

Table top gas lamp:


Another... looks PhotoShopped, who puts a lamp on the floor?
Seeing the flame above the globe, I have to wonder if it is
properly tuned/trimmed/set.

 

I had a propane lantern when I lived in rural N.D. for power outages. It worked nicely. But I needed to keep a supply of gas mantles for it, because after using one, it would disintegrate before the next power outage.

 

> TAKE LAMP

OK.

> XYZZY

It is now pitch dark. If you proceed you will likely fall into a pit.

> LIGHT LAMP

Your lamp is now on. You are in a debris room filled with stuff washed in from the surface. A low wide passage with cobbles becomes plugged with mud and debris here, but an awkward canyon leads upward and west. A note on the wall says:

Magic Word "XYZZY"

A three foot black rod with a rusty star on an end lies nearby.

 

[ame=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xyzzy]Xyzzy - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia[/ame]