Your lamp appears to have a nice coating of the tin on it, I would think keeping it dry would be all you'd need to do.

Perfect, thanks Jason..... One more query... Should the handle fold down or stay upright all the time?

Wire bailed handles are designed to be in two positions, one hangs the lamp freely, but by setting the handle in the lower position, it is locked in an upright position, allowing the lamp to be used for signalling (there's a whole list of standard lantern movements for signaling at night--this was before radios).

Project,
Please don't consider either stripping or coating your lantern. To the serious collector that is like like stripping the finish off a table, in otherwise mint condition, from the late 1700's. From the photos it looks like you've got a very nice lantern with a strong tin coating in quite good shape. As others have mentioned keep it out of the weather and it should outlast you.

As to whether the bail should be down or upright depends on how much space you want to give it wherever it sits......mld

Thanks guy's, the handle seems stiff on one side to slide up and down. I am considering leaving the paint on but it has runs in it, so it is not a factory applied coating by no means.

Ah, well, if someone has painted it silver, you could use some paint stripper on it, that wouldn't strip the tin coating. Then see how it looks. If it's really bad, silver spray paint will give it the tinned look, but won't last if you light the lamp.

Someone painted it matt black..

Sorry to jump the way I did. From the photos it looked like good tinning. That means pretty much all bets are off. One thing I've had luck with is walnut shell blasting. It isn't always easy to find someone who works with that medium but I've had a lantern blasted that way & it didn't hurt the tinning that I could tell. mld

Soda (Sodium Bicarbonate, aka Baking Soda) blasting should also work, as it is considered the most gentle way to remove paint. you don't even need to remove polished or plated trim (unless you want to get under it...). Just make sure the item is washed and dried immediately to get the soda dust out of every fold.

Rich C.

The easiest and safest (for the plating) way to get rid of paint on a lantern is Paint Remover. Consider all the "nooks and crannies" in a lantern that's hard to blast into, but paint remover can get in their easily. Then you can see if it's rusty or not, and go from there. It also doesn't require any special equipment, other than rubber gloves and a cheap paint brush.
I know, it's messy.

Hi Project,

My personal preference is to display with the handle locked (up) but if you choose to hang it, it won't matter. FWIW, my grandfather was a CN conductor and he used to always lock the handle as he said it was easy to carry on his arm going up and down boxcar ladders.

Jason

Thanks guy's, I might leave it painted for now as it looks good.. I thought about chem strip as that is the safest and I have had great success in the past with it.

Peter,

I had two that were painted green. Don't know what kind of paint they used, but the paint remover seemed to have a really hard time.

Also, these lanterns can be easily replated, and I once visited a metal plating shop that had done a number of brakeman's lanterns in the past (stripper poles too...). These guys:

http://www.mayfairplating.com/
https://www.facebook.com/Mayfair-Platin ... 134615214/