Candle Lanterns

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Candle lanterns are a very old invention. In fact very soon after the invention of fire and lamps that could burn with oil the lantern was invented. The lantern is nothing but a casing on the outside of a flame that kept the wind from blowing it out. In fact the earliest lanterns did not even have glass but metal hoops around. This kept the heat within and broke the force of the wind or breeze enough so that the flame did not get blown out.

After the invention of glass it was incorporated into these lanterns. This was very convenient because it reduced even the gutting of the flame when it flickered in the breeze. This basic design has lasted to this day with just a few variations along the way.

Most lanterns were oil lanterns because candles just did not give off enough light to be worth having outside. There was however a few designs that were used as early torches that could be taken around with you. Oil spilled when you carried them and candles were better if you were taking the lantern around with you. These lanterns were used until the early 1920s when electricity started spreading all over the globe.

The use of candles and lanterns started declining slowly after that although even now they are used in some developing countries in rural areas where electricity has not reached. Nowadays candles are not even used as emergency lanterns, what with battery powered ones available widely. The only reason that the candle has not died out completely is because it is still used in religious ceremonies everywhere and because they are still preferred by people to set mood lighting.

Nowadays perfumed candles are available for this reason. Many people use candle light if they want to create a closed intimate atmosphere and having a perfumed one is much better than a plain one. Of course you still have the problem of the flame flickering and getting blown out if you want to create this setting outdoors and this is where the candle lantern comes in.

Because these lanterns are not meant for functional use but as an accessory, you very rarely get just plain ones. Most of them are well designed and of good quality. Obviously there is not much in a candle lantern other than a metal casing with glass but if you are looking for a cheap one it will take you some looking. Many of these lanterns are priced above $100 and you would think that you were getting a table lamp if you look at the prices on some of these things.

You could try getting them online and there are a number of stores that sell them. They claim to give you a discount of more than 20% over what the stores charge you, but you will have to do some background checking to verify this claim. Many of these stores however do sell you stuff at a cheaper rate and even if it is just the sales tax that is not applicable you still come out ahead. Another thing that the Internet is good for is to check all the different designs that are available out there. Most stores will carry only a very small collection because they will have limited display space while this is not a problem for online stores.

A candle lantern is not really a necessity, but if you come across something that is sold somewhere at a rate that you consider is a good deal then it might be a good idea to get one. After all not every purchase that you make is made only because you need them and a candle lantern will look really nice in your home when you have visitors over.

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Lighting Universe

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Lighting Universe is one of the most well-known of all lighting systems sellers. They are not the manufacturers of these systems; they are an online store that stocks products from a number of different manufacturers, both name brands and others. They advertise saying that they have over three million products to choose from and sell through more than 500 partner websites.

Lighting Universe is a one stop shop for all your lighting needs. It is a large well known organization and they have a pan American presence. They are also very well-known which means that there is no danger of you getting involved in an online scam where people promise you a cut rate price and not send you anything after you have sent them the money.

They also offer a guarantee of the lowest price anywhere, which means that you are sure that you are not getting ripped off. Plus they ship free on any purchase of $49 or above which is pretty decent. There are a number of other stores that will not offer free shipping at all although they will tell you that this is because they sell you the product at almost a nil markup which is obviously just so much drivel meant to fool the unwary.

Lighting Universe has actually removed the pain in purchasing lighting systems. You just sit at your computer and browse through all their products and even if you don’t want to purchase anything at that time but want to mark it down for future purchase you can create an ID and add that item to your favorites where it will be sitting when you come round to purchasing it. This may seem like a not so great idea until you realize that there are more than 3,000,000 products to choose from and it is going to be a tough ask for you to remember exactly where you saw the item that you liked.

They also offer to sell you everything without any sales tax at all. The only provision is that this does not apply to residents in Washington state; anywhere else in the country and you get everything already at 10% off or more because of the lack of sales tax. Added to this the discount that most manufacturers give when they sell online and you can get yourself a really good deal with them.

Apart from all this their website also gives you additional features like a project manager that will help you design a lighting project for your home. It is also easily integrated into any other application and can be saved and printed out so that you can use it as a reference when you commence it. They also have separate managers for large scale buyers and give custom quotes based on your requirement. You also have the default contests and prizes that they give away.

You can connect to them via Facebook and twitter as well as their website. Even if you don’t want to put up your photo on their website as they request you to do it is a great place for you to post a picture of a room that you have designed yourself that has great furniture and fixtures. Who knows you may get a fan following yourself.

The best part of Lighting Universe is that they have a very good return policy. There are no hassles and there is not a single dissatisfied customer in the country considering that there has been no complaint of bad customer service from them. They make sure that your shopping experience is as enjoyable as possible so that you not only return to them again and again; you will also tell your friends to visit them.

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Lighting Direct

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Lighting systems are expensive, especially if you are looking for the nicer ones. Of course you can get the cheap unbranded ones but these are not of good quality and will not last as long as the good ones. Getting your lighting direct from the manufacturer is a good option because you can get it cheaper except for the fact that a number of manufacturers do not have their own websites at all.

For example Murray Feiss for all their name in the industry do not have their own website and do not sell online except through online stores, while at the same time Hinkley and Elk lighting have their own websites, take queries from customers but do not sell directly. When you are looking to buy directly from the manufacturer this poses a problem except if maybe you live in the same town where the manufacturer is located.

Of course you have many online stores that claim to sell at the lowest prices anywhere and sometimes this claim is true and sometimes it is not. Even when you find a store that quotes a lower price, there are no guarantees that it is a genuine online store or nothing but a scam to get your credit card details. There seems to be no option other than to go to a lighting dealer and get something even though you know that you will be paying up to 50% more for it.

There are however a few things that you can do. Like I already said, a few manufacturers do have an online presence and do accept retail orders; you just have to find them. This is especially true if the sale is a large one. If for example you are looking for a really nice chandelier you will probably have to pay up to $1500 or more to get something that is really impressive. Even if you get a 10% discount on the store price you will be saving yourself $150 and very often the discount will be more. This is because the store that stocks and sells the merchandise will be taking a minimum of 20% and sometimes even more as their cut for displaying the products. If the store is in a more upscale area the cut is even more.

Another thing that you can do to get lighting direct is to go to stores website. Most of them have websites where they accept retail orders and many of them actually quote a lower price than even the official lighting seller for the manufacturer will if you approach them directly. For example you may find out that the official seller is willing to sell you a $1500 chandelier for $1350 online but you will find stores willing to sell it to you for cheaper and by quite a bit. The only problem is to do a little digging and find the best place. Don’t always go with the cheapest quote because it is quite possible that what you see is not what you will get. If you find a good place search in various forums to find out how genuine they are, and if you do find that they are genuine go back and leave your feedback to help others like you who are looking to buy lighting direct from wholesalers.

The amount of discount you get by doing this is huge and there are instances where you will get up to a $100 off on something that costs $400 in stores. Imagine your savings if you are looking for a really expensive lamp then. Just be a little careful and do a lot of digging around because along with the good, there are plenty of the bad too. You just have to segregate them.

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Candle Lantern

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A candle lantern is a lantern that is powered by candle light. These lamps are old fashioned, so old fashioned that they belong to four or five generations before our current state in lighting. We are currently in the high discharge and LED lamp generation, before this came about it was the incandescent bulb and before that the gas lamp. The oil lamp came before this and the candle lantern comes before all of that.

This does not mean that they were not in use. They were widely used till nearly a century ago and were displaced only after the widespread arrival of electricity. In fact even now you will find them as curios and as emergency lanterns although they are more used for show than anything else now.

Candle light has always had a fascination for man. This is really surprising because he has tried so hard to develop newer lighting systems that are not only brighter but are more efficient and not so damaging to a person’s health. Even with all this candles are still being made and sold and even now if you say “romantic” there will be a candle somewhere in the picture. If you watch a movie where the hero wants to impress the heroin with a romantic dinner, he will have all sorts of colored lights and fireworks displays put up for her, but the place of honor belongs to the candle that is placed on the table top.

This is so not only in the fictional life of movies but also in real life. Whatever technology you use it is the humble candle that is the best setting if you want a really intimate atmosphere. Midnight services are usually candle lit services and the passing away of a widely respected person is mourned using candles.

If the use of candles is so widespread then so should be a candle lantern, although this is not true. Not many people use a candle lantern, preferring to hold it in their hand with the other cupped around the flame to protect it from the wind. Imagine you standing outside on a cold wintry morning for a New Year’s service with the wind blowing. Everyone will be hunched over with their backs to the wind not so much because they are feeling cold but because they don’t want their candles to go out. Then imagine you standing erect in the middle of this group because you have a candle lantern into which you have kept yours with no worry about wind or even rain.

Also imagine if you want to give a candle lit dinner to a loved person. You really don’t have much of a choice about the location that you choose because it has to be indoors. Even if there is no wind, a sudden gust of wind will put out the candle if you are outside. On the other hand having a candle lantern means you can pretty much have a dinner in gale force winds if you feel like it.

These lanterns are also very useful as emergency lanterns. In these days of electricity you may think that candles are not needed but they can come in handy should the electricity fail. Admittedly, battery operated torches or emergency lanterns are probably a better idea but candles can be much more enjoyable and can add a little fun to an undesired event. It can also give a family the opportunity to sit around the candle and just chit chat which is a nice change from watching TV will do so much to bring you all together. Of course you may not need a lantern for this which means that you will have to go groping in the dark for a candle that you last saw somewhere a few months back. A candle lantern on the other hand can be kept anywhere near at hand and will be just something for show until use for it comes up.

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ELK Lighting

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Elk lighting is actually not Elk but ELK, short for Ebenstein, Lesko and King, the three founding fathers so to speak of the company. They are based in Pennsylvania and were established in 1983. Within such a short time however they have managed to establish a name for themselves among a host of other lighting system manufacturers and the fact that they have grown so quickly so fast is a testament to the quality of both the design and the manufacture of their products.

They have showrooms not only in the US, but also in Europe and Asia, and their website says that they were finalists in the 21st annual arts awards. It also says that they are the preferred lighting system providers for a few of the royal houses in England. If this background is not sufficient we can proceed to the products that Elk lighting provides.

As a lighting system manufacturer Elk is a very new company. Most of the other well-known brands are nearly a century old and have a tradition of good design behind them. Elk, because it is new, tends to lean towards radical designs although you do get the traditional and old fashioned designs too. There is nothing really different in these designs and most of them are very similar to very many that you find in other companies too.

Where Elk is different is that they come out with radical new designs that are very different from other designs found in any other lighting system manufacturer. You get wall sconces shaped like twigs and chandeliers shaped like branches. You get pendant lamps like a half open flower and ceiling lights that look like decorations. Yes they do come out with the more normal designs but if you are going for Elk lighting then why would you spend so much money getting something that you can get cheaper elsewhere.

Price wise they are comparable to all the other well established brands out there, although they tend to have a larger range than many other manufacturers. In fact if you go to the picture gallery in their website you will find that each page has more than 100 different designs to choose from and they have 20 different pages in their catalog. You will probably get tired just looking at everything that they have.

Apart from this they also undertake any one off request that you may have, whether it be for a large commercial establishment or for your home. Their philosophy seems to be that once you enter their showroom, you should not walk out because you did not find something that you were looking for.

Obviously this is going to be expensive, but if you are looking for something that is totally different from what others around you have you should be willing to pay for it. You will however never feel ripped off as the quality of their products is there, even for a blind man to see. The sheen on the metal itself will tell you that they use genuine stainless steel and not chrome plating, and when they say bronze, they really mean bronze, not bronze-like. The glass that they use for their shades is clear enough to be called crystal and if you get something from them you do not have to even think of replacing it for the next two generations.

Another thing about Elk lighting is that they have a large in-house design team that is always coming out with new designs and collections. They make sure that they either set the trend or keep up with it so that you are never going to call them old fashioned or even classic. As the website says “Lighting for distinctive homes” is really their motto.

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Touch Lamps

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Touch lamps are lamps that are capable of being turned on and off by just touching them. This is nothing great and in fact anyone who has even a slight knowledge of electrical engineering can convert any lamp into a touch lamp without too much problem.

These lamps work on the principle of capacitance. In a nut shell capacitance refers to the ability of any object to hold an electrical charge. Even human beings hold a certain amount of charge although not enough to give others a “shock” and when they touch any object the total capacitance of that object goes up. If you had an instrument that measures the capacitance of any object, say a lamp, and connected it to a switch that will turn it on and off every time the capacitance changes even briefly you have a touch lamp.

There is no danger of any electric shock with these lamps and they are perfectly safe. They can be installed anywhere although most of the designs are for table lamps rather than for wall fittings because of practical reasons. A touch lamp is more a design element or something that is used as a conversational gambit rather than as a lighting system. In fact most of the lamps are small in size and you will very rarely come across even a normal sized one.

Because of this unique property, many touch lamps come in designs that are not traditionally table lamp designs. You get lamps that are made more like decorative items that will suddenly glow when touched. The number of designs is innumerable and going online is a good idea to take a look at all the different designs there are. You can even purchase from online stores if you want and most of them offer discounted prices too.

Touch lamps are a great accessory in your home. Having one on your center table or on a small table next to a chair or sofa is a good idea. Even if you do not need an additional light in the room, having one will give you that “I am different from others” impression. Because these lamps are considered novelty items they are not good for lighting purposes. You however get them in all shapes including antique lamps and slag lamps. In fact you even get kits with which you can convert most normal lamps which have a certain amount of metal to a touch lamp. “Touch technology” does not work with glass and you will need a metal one for it to work and as long as you have a metal stand you can convert it to a touch lamp.

These lamps are not too common and even if you find them at a store you will not have too wide a selection to choose from. Going online is a good way to search for and get a really unique one. Although many people may not particularly want one, it is a really unique gift to give and is much better than other comparably priced curios that are the usual choice for gifts.

Cost wise these lamps are not too expensive either and you get quite good ones for between $30 and $50. many of these online stores also offer really good discounts and you can get a 10% or 20% discount on the price, especially if it is on a sale. You don’t lose anything anyway and if you do find something that you like you are ahead because you have just saved yourself some money. If you know that you are going to need a gift for someone, as long as you allow three days for shipping, most stores will ship it to you well within time.

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Magnifying Lamp

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Magnifying lamps or magnifier lamps as they are otherwise known are not a new phenomenon. They have been used for generations in areas where both good light as well as magnification was needed. The jewelry, electronics and watch making industry are just some of the examples of places where these kinds of lamps have been used for a long time. They have however only recently started being used in households for various purposes and have made a big hit.

These lamps are very simple; merging a magnifying glass along with a light. In earlier times people used to have a desk lamp to provide light and use either a hand held magnifying glass or a monocle that could be gripped by the eye if they wanted both hands free. This was obviously not the best solution and very soon large magnifying glasses started being attached to the light so that they could continue to do their work relieving both their arms as well as any stress from their eyes.

Although very useful in different industries you may think that these lamps are not very useful in your home. You may very well be right, but just read on and find out about the different options that you have and then decide whether you want one or not.

The first kind is obviously the desk lamp. They are very simply just a large magnifying lamp with a small lamp attached to the underside. It also comes with a flexible stem so that you can position it exactly where you want it. There are variations of the same lamp in the sense that you get wall mounted lamps of the same design and ones that do not have a flexible neck. There are battery operated ones and electricity operated ones. You have lamps where the magnifying glass comes with a snap on cover so that you can shut it and use it like an ordinary table lamp while you just snap it open to use magnification when you need it. You even get lamps that have separate stems for the lamp and the magnifying glass so that you can position each where you want it.

The second kind is the floor mounted lamp which usually comes with a tripod stand. They may or may not have wheels and you can choose which model you want. These lamps are good especially for the elderly because they can effectively take their lamps with them. They keep it next to their chairs most of the day and take it to their bedside at night so that they can read before they go to sleep.

There are small magnifying lamps that can be carried in your pocket or purse. They are usually nothing more than a hand held magnifying glass with a battery powered lamp that you switch on. Although this may seem like a very embarrassing thing to do, it is actually a cool accessory to have when you go to a dimly lit restaurant or theater. It is much more elegant to pull one out of your pocket and keeping it at arms distance to read what you have to as opposed to bringing the reading material right up to your nose.

The best kind and one that even the youngsters would like is the head mounted ones. These lamps are sort of like a torch that comes with a head band and shines down instead of up. It comes with a couple of magnifying glasses that can be flipped down over your eyes when you need it and flipped back up when you don’t. This is actually a really cool thing to have and is a great present to give others, even if their eyesight is not failing.

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