Coleman Empire 237 lantern

[Andrew Potgieter]

I was fortunate to recieve two  coleman 237's this past week.The empire 237 is in fairly good condition and cleaned up nicely with a bit of spit and polish and is dated 1    48. The other 237 is in very good condition and looks like it has only ever used one tank of fuel. The ventilator does not even show any signs of soot on the inside.It is dated 1    65. Can they both run on petrol and parafin or only the Empire.

[Pharos]

Congrats, Andrew. Fantastic acquisitions! Not often found in such good condition. To be period-correct, you should swap the wire bail handles on the lanterns. Neither of them will run well long term on modern petrol. It will foul up the generator quite quickly. You could run them on White Gasoline / Coleman Fuel / Preclean / Benzene with reduced performance but you would still need to pre-heat with spirits. The model 236 was specifically made for white gas whereas the 237 was designed for kerosene(paraffin), which is a lot safer, cheaper and gives much more light.

-Phil

[Pharos]

On closer inspection, it looks like the Empire came with a 639 bail handle. It should look like this:

[Andrew Potgieter]

The Empire lantern unfortunately did not have a bail handle. I used a 639 bail while I wait for a new bail to be made so that I can use the lantern while I wait. Hopefully I will eventually find an origional bail.

[Andrew Potgieter]

I had a bail made for the Empire but it matched the newer bail on the left so I had to make a more correct one myself.The  Empire lantern definately looks better now.

[Pharos]

Looking good! Now you could do a light output  comparison between the 500 cp 237 and the 300 cp 1020. Use the same 500 cp mantle on both, You may be surprised at what you find...

-Phil