Pictured are two Indian lamps, JK Dey, 13, Old China Bazaar Street, Calcutta. (or whatever they’re calling it now). The one on the left is a non-relighter, the one on the right is a battery ignition, with a copy of the Beard Mackie indicator showing. The non-relighter came via an acquaintance in England, a long time and highly respected collector. However, there was a tiny crack in the glass which looked trivial, but it was horizontal, not vertical.
Through time this crack grew slowly, till it was nearly the full circumference. By this time, I had decided to try and get a relighter type from India, as I believe they are probably the last company to make approved miners lamps. Albeit approved by the Indian Government, I don’t know to what extent this approval would be recognised worldwide. I immediately met a problem, yes I could purchase a lamp and replacement glass, but I couldn’t pay by credit card or PayPal. It had to be a bank transfer to the required amount in Indian Rupees. I contacted an Indian Bank that had offices in Sydney and was told no, I couldn’t open an account, and no, they didn’t deal in cash. 
That left me scratching my head, wondering why it was called a bank? Back to JK Dey, could I leave it till I visited the UK? Doing it from Australia meant the money was going through a bank in Syria of all places. Yes, that was OK, so I eventually managed a transaction through Barclays. It didn’t go smoothly though, the bank did the transfer leaving JK Dey to pay the transfer costs. By this time I was back in Australia, so I offered to send them some cash to the value of £20 in Sterling or US$. Fortunately, they took pity on me and waived the deficit.
So that left me with a cracked glass, which I thought I might be able to repair with a windscreen repair kit. See the pictures for the result – not bad I thought! As another acquaintance once told me, a cracked glass is better than no glass at all!
– Information provided by Bosuns Mate.
