Record prices: the most expensive miners’ lamps ever sold at auction
The three biggest single-lamp hammer prices we can find, and what put them there. A$ figures are approximate, hammer price only unless noted.
1. £15,000 (about A$28,500): R. Watson six-bar lamp
Moore, Allen & Innocent, Cirencester, June 2017. It turned up in a box of bits sent in for a general sale, estimated at £100–150. The auctioneer checked the maker’s stamp, R. WATSON on the bonnet, and found it was a Newcastle-type Davy. Two telephone bidders took it to £15,000, and it went to an anonymous overseas buyer. The auctioneer called it a possible world record.
Why so much? The bars. He found a four-bar version that had made about £1,000 and several three-bar ones at around £150, but no other six-bar example anywhere.
2. £10,500 (about A$19,950): Biram’s Patent “Economy” lamp, about 1850
Sutton Hill Farm Country Auctions, Broughton Astley, Leicestershire, 21 October 2023, lot 58. Benjamin Biram patented his improvements in 1849. He was the colliery man behind some of the first mechanical ventilation fans at Elsecar in the early 1840s, and he also invented an anemometer for checking airflow underground. His “Economy” lamp looks nothing like a Davy:
- a semi-cylindrical body, flat at the back, with a front plate reading BIRAM’S PATENT SAFETY LIGHT No 100 ECONOMY
- air in through gauze in a sliding frame; part of the gauze could be swapped for mica
- a metal chimney with gauze-protected exit holes instead of the usual gauze cylinder
- a silvered parabolic reflector behind the flame
It was lotted with a bicycle lamp in a general country sale. The lots either side made £8 and £14.
3. £8,800 (about A$16,700): Thornton & Sons “Eloin’s Improved”, early 1850s
Lay’s Auctioneers, Penzance, 10 September 2026. Read the full post.
What the three have in common
All three are early, named and rare, and two of them turned up in general sales where nobody expected them. Check the boxes of bits.
Lamp record
| Top hammer price | £15,000, R. Watson six-bar Davy, June 2017 (2017 auction result) |
|---|---|
| Second | £10,500, Biram’s Patent Economy, 21 October 2023 |
| Third | £8,800, Thornton & Sons Eloin, 10 September 2026 |
Sources
- BBC News: “Miner’s lamp found in box sells for £15,000” (2017)
- Sutton Hill Farm Country Auctions, 21 October 2023, lot 58
- Science Museum Group: Biram’s Patent Economy safety lamp
