FrenchBoilers3DetailsFinal-

Comment

Comment by Jonas Clark-Elliott on July 24, 2009 at 10:54pm

Since this was posted, I've added two Boilers and a Bubbler (thanks to Astrobaby, who sent me photos I had - and which I added to the list - just before my HD crash, but had forgotten about). Soon, there'll be another Lavaboiler by F. Vaudan, this one with a carboy-shaped sphere in the middle!

Comment by Jonas Clark-Elliott on July 22, 2009 at 7:41pm

Thanks, Vixen. It was made for two reasons: one, I thought it'd be a neat guide to what's out there - I thought other collectors were definitely as enthralled by these glass fantasies, all different; many similar to, but none exactly like, a lava lamp. But second, I just thought it would be fun to draw them. And it was. If anyone actually wants to see that junk, I can post the original, first boiler drawings (2) and the first-edition boiler list (with 25 entries).

Comment by ☆VixenGypsy☆ on July 21, 2009 at 8:53pm

WOW! You're having way too much fun with this, but it's very well done!

Comment by Jonas Clark-Elliott on July 21, 2009 at 10:19am

The colors in this aren't as bright, nor the detail quite as sharp, as the original - converting from .bmp or .tiff to .jpg loses a fair bit of those, but it doesn't destroy the legibility. And things like the S. Vera sticker (copied from another photo in my gallery) looks smoother - it was drawn at maximum magnification (800x) and is a bit choppy, due to all the tiny stuff required.

Comment by Jonas Clark-Elliott on July 21, 2009 at 8:44am

Correct. I kept saving photos of every boiler lamp I saw, as well as some related items (liquid hourglasses and hand-warmed boilers) and slowly began making an illustrated list. This picture as you see it grew over time, starting in 2006 with maybe 25 entries. The version before that (more just an illustration than a collector's list) had 10 entries. Each group has a slightly different operation - the lavaboilers are, for example, rather different than standard boilers, and significantly different enough from the lavaboilers-with-beads to warrant a division.

Comment by Mark Goo on July 20, 2009 at 4:04pm

This is an amazing diagram!
So, let me get this right, you made this yourself?!?

Comment by Jonas Clark-Elliott on July 20, 2009 at 12:25pm

I was looking through my photos of boilers and similar items, when I realized that a few of the hand-operated units were drawn far out-of-scale. The two large footed models being about the same approximate size, the purple one (lower right) I noticed was taller than I had drawn it. The large orange footed model with double-inverted tube and bubbles had the same "F. Vaudan Paris" sticker on its base as the pale straw-colored topknot model at lower left - and I noticed that the label looked far smaller on the orange one, which made me redraw it larger. One of the blue ones (just above the cute Chinese man) also was, I realized, larger, so it too got remade.

Anyone seen any other hand-warmed units that they're certain are from France? Loads of "pulse glasses", "love meters" and "handboilers" were made in Taiwan and sold everywhere.