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- Jay
Telfer may have handed over the reigns of the Wayback Times to
Sandy and Peter Neilly, but he is still going to be visible in
the newspaper.
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- The
longtime resident of Prince Edward County will be writing Jay's
Blog, a column on his ongoing love of antiques and life in the
Quinte Bay area.
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- Jay's
Wayback Times, founded in 1995, published 1.7 million papers
in 11 years and more than 258,000 kms
- were
traveled for visits
- and
deliveries to antique
shows, stores and markets.
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- Jay
Telfer's final issue
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- Jay's Wayback Blog
- About lives, then
and now
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- A Fond Farewell to a Friend and “Lamptologist”
- By Jay Telfer
- If you looked up the word “tangent” in the dictionary,
you might see a picture of Dick Piller pointing in a completely
odd direction. If you shut the book and opened it up again, Dick
Piller would be there again, but he would be expounding on a
completely different topic and pointing somewhere else.
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- Dick Piller, “Lamptologist,” passed away on Jan.
26, 2007. He will be sadly missed by his wife, Helen, all of
the lamp dealers, his customers and his close friends. I attended
his memorial service at the Bloomfield United Church and every
pew was filled. It was very touching and yet no surprise to see
how well thought of Dick was. It is nice that Helen will know
he will be well remembered. I felt badly about his death - I
was always thinking there would be time to go down to Wellington
and have a visit. No time, no visits, no friends.
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- Dick Piller loved fixing antique lamps and as he said, he
did not work for a living, he lived to work at his hobby. He
would write articles on antique lamps for the Wayback Times and
he was one of the best promoters the paper ever had. Dick was
the man who distributed all of the papers I could give him all
over Prince Edward County
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- He would go to the east coast and talk about the paper; he
would go up north and talk about the paper; he would go to any
number of locations and tell everyone about the Wayback Times.
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- I met with Dick and Helen every two months over the first
eight to nine years the paper was published and we would sit
and chat, drink tea, eat cookies and talk about anything and
everything. He was a religious man but he would never broadcast
it. He was a complete optimist and a go- getter. I would complain
about how things were going and he would joke and tell a good
story.
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- When we talked and got to the heart of the matter, if Dick
did not like the subject, or had said his piece, he would do
exactly what I mentioned - take off on a new inquisitive tangent.
You had to be quick to follow
along and move into his new view. Often, when he called on the
phone, with no visuals to guide me, I would have to pay close
attention to what he said to follow where the changes would be.
I always looked forward to his calls.
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- Dick had been through many recessions and many progressions
and he loved to meet with dealers and have great chats about
the antique business.
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- Tom Logan, who runs the Mantle Lamp Supply Company,
was one of the five speakers at Dick's memorial service. Dick,
Tom said, came into his shop one day, introduced himself, looked
around and said 'We could do some projects together.' As Tom
noted, many other dealers he had met often wanted to either buy
him out or upset his apple cart. But Dick had no such motives
and was a man of his word. They did very well in several projects
they performed together. Tom reflected “We even made some
money on a few of them!"
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- This is a piece Dick wrote for the Wayback Times in the March/April
issue in 1997. Perhaps the title should now be “Forty Years
of Lamp Restoration?”
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- Thirty Years of Lamp Restoration & Values
by Richard Piller, “Lamptologist”
With the sales of antique furniture being a little on the slow
side, decorative items such as lamps and brick brack are the
glue that is holding the smaller shops together.
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- With a sharp eye and a little knowledge, a wise dealer can
purchase period lighting, turn his stock over and make a reasonable
profit.
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- The cleaning of glass oil lamps or dirty brown oil that has
gelled over the years is a simple task to perform. Soak the dirty
font with any thin paint stripper, scour out with #2/0 steel
wool and then dump the residue unto
your driveway and it will kill the weeds. I call it a double
whammy!
Scour the glass with pine sol solution and soak for five to 10
minutes and then dump into same driveway. A good scrubbing with
a liquid dish wash solution will leave your glass font sparkling
clean and your driveway
will be free of weeds!
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- Those brass collars can be cleaned and polished with #3/0
steel wool and a little elbow grease. (One client phoned me and
asked where she could buy elbow grease.)
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- Now the burners can be a bit of a problem. If the wick has
been glued to the burner with dried up oil, do not force the
wick raiser to free the wick.You will probably strip the gears
on the wick raiser and ruin a $15 brass burner. The same applies
to get the burner from the font collar.
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- Old brass burners, #1 and #2, are getting scarce. In pristine
condition, burners are going for $15 to $20. I will gladly trade
new burners for old. Most new burners are of steel with a flashing
of brass, which quickly deteriorate and the threads do not always
fit old lamps. Handle those brass burners with tender loving
care.
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- Free the dirty old smelly wick from the burner by soaking
it in thin paint stripper for approximately 30 minutes. Take
one end of the wick and pull while turning the wick raiser with
the other hand. Do not force it. If it does not come out fairly
easy, re-soak same for another 30 minutes.
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- To polish the burner, take an old toothbrush and Lysol toilet
bowl cleaner and scrub burner until tarnish is removed. Rinse
in lukewarm water and then polish by hand with #3/0 steel wool
until burner is clean. Don’t rub
too hard.You don’t want your antique $20 burner looking
like it just came from a plating bath.
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- If you require new wicks and chimneys, or if your lamp collars
are loose or missing, contact a knowledgeable antique lamp dealer
for parts. If you are nice to him, he might even sell you some
old parts.
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- Just an old tune about using the correct lamp oil, if you
plan to burn your lamp . . . No. 1 Kerosene from your oil dealer
is the cheapest. That is probably the same oil used in your kerosene
heater. It is smelly, smoky, turns a dirty brown with age, and
eventually will gum up your lamp and your brain.
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- Get Smart! Purchase a litre of pure lamp oil. There is no
odor, the oil does not turn brown, the wick does become sticky
and yucky and flame burns with a brighter glow. Your lamp has
now doubled in price and will continue to grow in value.
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- I was looking in the first edition of Units Price Guide (August
1968) and a Cranberry hanging lamp c/w prism brass frame and
original oil font was valued at $300. A table lamp with Tiffany
style shade and cast brass base stem priced at $75. Canadian
Bulls Eye opalescent base and stem, clear glass font, original
chimney, $45. Double hanging angle lamp c/w original shades,
$110. Cranberry hanging hall lamp, all original, $120.
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- From the above, I would say all these styles of lamps have
quadrupled in price. Plus, yours is the pleasure of having these
lamps decorate your homes. Yes, I would have to say, lamps are
a good investment."
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- I met Dick at the Lions Club in 1991 and got to know him
as a friend, a writer for the Wayback Times, and a dancer...
huh?
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- The late Keith Taber was the Governor of the Lions
Eastern District A3. During one of their functions, I convinced
Dick and several other members to participate in a little dance
number using the song “He’s a Rebel (and he”ll
never be any good).”
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- A group of men, myself included, aged between 40 to 70 years,
climbed onstage carrying large paper bags and mouthing the words
to the song. We began by rolling up our pant legs and blocking
off Keith (who wore his Lions cap backwards), and reaching into
the bags we donned black robes with a white nuns' headdress.
Keith was then also covered with robes and when revealed to the
audience he was dressed (Governor that he was) as a Pope and
singing, “He’s a rebel and he’ll never be any
good; He’s a rebel 'cause he never ever does what he should...”
Dick Piller was in there dancing up a storm in his nun's habit.
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- When Dick approaches the light at the end of the tunnel,
he will be questioning God, “Lord, is that an old Bradley
& Hubbard, or is that an Aladdin?”
Other articles by Jay Telfer
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