Oozing Goo - The Lava Lamp Syndicate

I had an accident with my 60s-formula white squiggle. I bumped the globe over while the lamp was hot, clouding it badly. Then I had another accident: I tried filtering it through multiple towels and didn't realize, until after I'd washed out the towels and refilled the globe, that they retained liquid. Now my best globe is cloudy AND missing two inches of liquid. I'm pretty down in the dumps on this one. The first was due to my own stupidity at the moment (I put the globe aside on the floor, then knocked it over when I stood up) and the latter is, well, also due to my own stupidity at the moment (what, towels absorb and hold liquid? Who knew? )

My budget is rising again. First priority, ship a lamp I've owed to another collector for way too long (you know who you are, sorry about the wait!)

Second priority... I just ruined one of my best lamps. No, a white squiggle isn't too unusual, but completely functional 1966 formula IS - I could run that thing (per the instructions) for days at a time, and it wouldn't overheat!

I haven't added anything unusual to the collection in a few years... The thrift stores here get a whole lotta nothin'. Yesterday, I visited all my old junk shop haunts, and they're all either closed, or barren of lava. I found one lamp - a 1987 red/yellow Century, in a very beat-up 1960s (purple/pink/white) box, for the astounding price of only eighty five bucks! What a deal! Uh huh... So, does anyone have anything unusual they'd be willing to part with?

I'm still looking for my first "Elegant". I have the Glitterlite version... Planter or Vase, brass base, silver base or flocked base, planter need not have orig. flowers, just as long as it has functional lava in a nice color. ("Nice" being relative - many would not call color 10, red lava/green mist, "nice", though I would)

Would also love to find a functional Continental (steel oval) or Mystique (steel square) lava (I have the square glitter)

Possibly... Fog Rider, might you sell that oval red/violet lava with the odd checkered design in the metal?

Lamps I'm after but could not afford right now: Night Lite (clown Consort) or a Regency (larger Consort with metal or wood cap)

Basically, I'm just peeved that I destroyed a lamp through my own sheer stupidity and, coupled with the fact that local lava hunting has been bad for well over a year, I'd like to add something to the collection without fighting off bidders on eBay. I don't have much of anything I'd trade, i.e. doubles (a plain Lantern in red/yellow, with lava crusts in the air space - I can't get the cap off to clean it; a later-style Enchantress Planter with orig. flowers, cream lava but liquid faded to clear)

Sorry for the long, long post.
~ Jonas

(Lamps pictured below are old photos off eBay. I do NOT own these lamps)

Views: 363

Attachments:

Reply to This

Replies to This Discussion

I may be after another item soon, too... My last intact Wave Machine sprung a leak. It cracked somehow. I'd like to replace it with a real 80s or 90s black or chrome base, blue liquid Wave Machine. Not now, but in the next few months... I'm not looking for one of the colored plastic base models - to me, they're just not the same. I'll have two extra bases available, unless someone just wants to sell me the Wave vessel - one is a rectangular black base for the Adriatic 16" model, the other is a flared black base for the 18" Caribbean.
I did an ASTOUNDINGLY stupid thing, myself. I have been waiting for just the right globe with screw cap to trade out for my cloudy globe on my black squiggle. I finally got one in the form of an old century with that reddish/orange lava liquid (name of color???) But then i got an old blue/white century also and decided to swap out liquids to make a reddish/white, and a blue/red. Stupid me didnt notice that one lamp had twice the lava, and less liquid, so one ended up with low level, the other with too much. and, neither would flow. I swapped back but the lamps were never the same. The reddish one clouded up bad. I am still cursed with a black squiggle in need of a clear globe....sigh. I could kick myself. I should of left well enough ALONE!!! As for wanting an elegant, cannot blame you, I looovee mine. One of these days when I get an electrical converter for my astrobaby, I will take pics of the two side by side!
What color is the globe that came with your black squiggle, and how clouded is it? Got a photo? And yeah, mixing liquids in lamps of different vintages doesn't work. There have been a number of distinct formula variants: 1965 liquid-when-cold, 60s "can run for days", 70s/80s, 90s, and current. The reddish-orange we see is the result of what once was an orange/yellow.
I emptied the original globe that the black squiggle came with (it looked like bird seeds sitting in strawberry jelly at the bottom of vaseline colored liquid.) filled it with black lava green liquid-not great.

Pre-refill

Post-refill



The two globes on the left (originally from two centuries)USED to look as clear as the two globes on the right... my bad

Reply to Discussion

RSS

About

Autumn created this Ning Network.

GooHeads

Groups

© 2024   Created by Autumn.   Powered by

Badges  |  Report an Issue  |  Terms of Service