Trekker Lantern

Although the one on tracks site is a pupusful made piece, the looks of it is simple. As stated just a butchered tin cup. Its made from material the old timers had, using the technology had at the time. I cant understand the assumption that nobody in the old days altered their equipment. Such "field alteration" could not be expected to make it in to mesuems.
We could think in the terms of 18th cent fusils. All known are long full sized guns. Do we assume that if the barrel was bent or injured in some way. Or the fore stock broke or cracked the owner threw the gun away. I think he altered it...made it in to a "canoe gun". I think people made scoops out of tin cups candle holders out of broken plates ect ect.
They used what they had to full fill the needs of the time. If some one altered a cup in to a candle holder, when its use was no longer needed it was altered in to something that they needed or scraped and reused. Old tin cups were sold to tinkers, old guns were sold to makers or the parts striped and made in to something else.

With respect to the re-use of tin cups, all I read is speculation.

Tin cups were disposable items, and often the handle either broke off in use or was broken off purposefully. When no longer of use as a cup, they were discarded. I can see where a candle lantern might be needed in a fort setting, but fail to see why some guy in the field who used his cup (and rarely had or had need of a candle) would think "Hey, I'm going to make a candle holder from this cup". It doesn't track.

Yes, I understand that our ancestors were clever people, but to ruin a cup to make a useless candle-holder is the opposite of clever. If you wish to use one, feel free. I'll stick to documented items. Far less explaining, justifying and mental gymnastics to do...

Okay, I don't think I would need one. So I see your point. If I don't need it and its an alteration I wouldn't do then its just couldn't have been used. So no body back then would have done it....unless its found in a meusem then we would know its ok.
Want to buy a bridge, cash only please. One time deal

I'm not wealthy enough to buy or make inaccurate items. I spend my time on research rather than spending my money buying stuff other people created from their imagination (to fit an imagined need), of which there are far too many.

Remember, most vendors are in the business to make money. It is our job as historians and consumers to do our homework to verify what is being sold is accurate.

Black Hand said:

The issue I have with it is that it is advertised as a "trekkers" lantern. If advertised as a candle sconce/holder (and of a proper style & construction), then it would be a different story...

Click to expand...

The thread has wandered. A trekker isn't alway hiking, and, I suspect, rarely in the dark. At night he would have a shelter of some kind. A light with some protection from wind could be very useful.

Rifleman1776 said:

At night he would have a shelter of some kind. A light with some protection from wind could be very useful.

Click to expand...

True. A fire a with some sort of wind-break (and handfuls of pencil-thin or thinner twigs) does the trick, as well as providing warmth.

I could even understand a chunk of candle stuck to a rock (as I've done a time or two), though I've found candles to be pretty-well useless in "trekking" situations as the fire provides more than enough light for any need.

All of which begs the question. Why would a trekker need a candle at all much less a holder for it?

Fundamentally, that is indeed the question.

Any person that walks any distance with their supplies on their back, and does it more than once, will discard useless items such as this ASAP (At least most will. Some continue to carry plenty of excess until they tire of the exercise and stop going into the woods). I'll gladly trade the weight of useless manure for the weight of food or rum. I even stopped carrying candles long ago.

I still carry a candle stub or two, but they're in my fire kit, they work well for getting wet twigs and such going---once the fire is going, the candle stub is blown out and put away for when I need it again.

Rod

By the way, whenever I'm packing up gear to head out, I remind myself of this quote by John James Audubon, regarding veteran mountaineer Etienne Provost:

"When Bell was fixing his traps on his horse this morning, I was amused to see Provost and LaFleur laughing outright at him. These old hunters could not understand why he needed all those things to be comfortable. Provost took only an old blanket, a few pounds of dried meat, and his tin cup, and rode off in his shirt and dirty breeches. LaFleur was worse off for he took no blanket and said he could borrow Provost's tin cup; but he being a most temperate man, carried a bottle of whiskey to mix with brackish water."

They were setting out from Ft. Union to head up the Yellowstone on a hunting trip. Puts all the manure we tend to think we need to take along into perspective, doesn't it?

Rod

As do I (I save the 1" stubs left over from candle lanterns). Insurance for those cold/damp winter days.

At one time, I thought that having candles in the field (for light) would have been useful. I soon discovered they were extra & useless weight.

trekker's can't afford the extra inconvenience of a lantern! When it gets dark, ya stop!!!

The fact that you use only itams you can copy from an original is great. How ever you should not dismiss a piece simply because you can't find a reference to it. Think of rifleman frocks. I think there are only two that are known back to the ARW. We have some paintings that show them clean and white. Do you think everybodys looked the same? Of corse not. Each was hand made. Did they all have two rows of fringe on one cape, did some have two capes, were some made with no cape, some with 3 capes? Did all have the box of fringe on the front, were some fringeless ? Look at the way they made clothing then, look at what could be done with that design and make one in your style. Remember everyone made was a one of a kind. All of our equipment is, or was then one of a kind. To limit yourself to just copies is to miss the story of the past.

You are avoiding the fact that descriptions and/or paintings and/or drawings are also available (especially for rifle-mans frocks) in addition to actual examples for many items. Without originals upon which to base our reproductions (because we know that verbal descriptions are often lacking in fine detail), at best, all we can do is make educated guesses (historically-inspired).

As we are trying to replicate a very particular time in history, we have boundaries that have been set by existing information. All we have to work with IS EXISTING INFORMATION.

Having looked at a hundred images (or more) of extant candle-holders/sconces, I can make a fairly educated assessment that the piece offered for sale is a fabrication of someones imagination. It looks like someone added folding handles to a commercial piece of modern brass tubing and created the solution to a need which didn't exist.

Yeah the rifleman's frock argument is pretty poor..., there are an abundance of references to different colors and materials.

Mark Baker admits that he started with a caped "frock" and now only uses a simple shirt without a cape as he hasn't found any descriptions of a "hunting frock" with a cape for his period and geography (1760-1770), and he admits it's his personal choice while others are free to do otherwise... although George Morgan sold "hunting frocks" for more than a shirt... Mordan doesn't mention in the records the reason for the higher price...

Now back to the thread...

Because its well known nobody could have cut a tin cup into a holder and reflector in one, until the maker for track got the idea :rotf:

Click to expand...

Because it was well known that everybody carried tin snips or a flile with them wherever they went. :rotf:

Nobody is saying "it could not be done", and that's not an argument in favor either.

Folks are ignoring some of the variables. First, a "tin" cup in the 18th century and into the 19th century is not modern "tin". It was thin iron dipped in tin. You are not going to cut it with a pair of sewing shears. You are going to need very large snips or a file. Second, any of you folks ever seen what happens to a "tin" cup over time let alone a correctly made thin iron cup dipped in tin, over time? When correctly maintained, it gets to be a very dark gray, and with less care it's black and orange... so why would anybody think this would reflect light at all and cut it up? A person would do better to simply use a candle or a candle and a holder.

LD

Another consideration would be the availability of the candles themselves...

I am alaways amazed at the ends people will go to to uphold basesless arguments. Morgan is painted in a caped frock. We cant tell if its one or two capes. Its white. Beyond your own ideas what eveidence do you have to offer as to the looks of a frontier worn frock?
We have to grope our way in the dark. I would have to look up the reference to be sure but I think it was the MM fitzgereld whos leg was apmutated bu his bigade. In the field the MM brigade proudced a saw that was too corse for bone. So they fliped it over and filed finer theeth in it with a file they were carring.
I trecked from Grand juntion to fort bridger one year and a few years later from ft bridger to lander then back over to grand junction. I was preety minimilist but had me a file and coping saw in my pack. It boggles the mind to imagine the frontiersmen didn't have some simple tools.

Another application of the modern mindset to a non-modern situation.

tenngun said:

I am alaways amazed at the ends people will go to to uphold basesless arguments. Morgan is painted in a caped frock. We cant tell if its one or two capes. Its white. Beyond your own ideas what eveidence do you have to offer as to the looks of a frontier worn frock?

Click to expand...

Let's start here (time frame 1700 -1800):
Frock https://www.google.com/search?q=fr...s&tbs=cdr:1,cd_min:1/1/1700,cd_max:12/31/1800
https://www.google.com/search?q=fr...s&tbs=cdr:1,cd_min:1/1/1700,cd_max:12/31/1800

Hunting shirt https://www.google.com/search?q=fr...s&tbs=cdr:1,cd_min:1/1/1700,cd_max:12/31/1800
https://www.google.com/search?q=fr...s&tbs=cdr:1,cd_min:1/1/1700,cd_max:12/31/1800

A Tour in the United States of America: Containing an Account of ..., Volume 1
By John Ferdinand Smyth Stuart 1784
http://books.google.com/books?id=c...AA#v=onepage&q=hunting shirt +america&f=false

Their whole dress is also very singular, and not very materially different from that of the Indians; being a hunting shirt, somewhat resembling a waggoner's frock, ornamented with a great many fringes, tied round the middle with a N 2 broad broad belt, much decorated also, in which is fastened a tomahawk, an instrument that serves every purpose of defence and convenience; being a hammer at one side and a sharp hatchet at the other ; the shot bag and powder-horn, carved with a variety of whimsical figures and devices, hang from their necks over one shoulder; and on their heads a flapped hat, of a reddish hue, proceeding from the intensely hot beams of the fun.

And according to the number and variety of the fringes on his hunting shirt, and the decorations on his powder-horn, belt, and rifle, he estimates his finery, and absolutely conceives himself of equal consequence, more civilized, polite, and more elegantly dressed than the most brilliant peer at St. James's, in a splendid and expensive birth-day suit, of the first fashion and taste, and most costly materials...

Their hunting, or rifle shirts, they have also died (sic) in variety of colours, some yellow, others red, some brown, and many wear them quite white.

And those are just descriptions from 1 primary source...