I have seen a blue version of this Air Raid Warden name plate before made by Caxton Name Plate Manufacturing Company Limited. Below is a red coloured version. Currently available on eBay.
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An interesting District Incident Officers armband printed on the usual Cambridge blue backing. Probably a locally-produced example for Incident Officers (IOs) in a particular local authority.
Prices across the Home Front and Civil Defence/ARP collecting world continue their upward trajectory as evidenced by the sums currently being reached by document and paper ephemera. The below ARP Appointment Card (sometimes called warrant cards) is for a member of Derby's Report & Control Centre. I suppose the number of people involved at Report & Control was small and this drives the interest in the item. It sold on eBay for £83 including shipping.
I bought this 1939-dated Ever Ready ARP lamp on eBay recently. It was in a pretty poor state with a lot of surface corrosion. However, a little elbow grease, paint stripper, rust remover and some black spray gloss brought it back to life.
The type of battery required for lamps such as this - the No. 800 or similar - are no longer made but bright sparks have 3D-printed various battery replacement holders. As an added touch, the vendor I used also printed out a facsimile of the Ever Ready label from the 1930s. The battery holder takes two C2 batteries. I replaced the bulb (in the first image the original bulb is on the right) and the lamp works fine. The light, I have to say, is very weak. The glass is intentionally frosty to further reduce the amount of light emitted. However, in the blackout I imagine it would suffice. Battery adapters are available from this seller on eBay. I recently purchased this Ever Ready clip-on helmet lamp. I'll be renovating the lamp by stripping it back to bare metal and removing the rust etc. I have seen quite a number of unused helmet lamps in boxes for sale. These are marked Lamp Spot Electric or similar and a number have the War Department crow's foot / broad arrow emblem imprinted on them. I'm currently uncertain whether these lamps (every example appears to have a red and black cord) are post-war items. Perhaps someone can recognise the order number as something post-war.
The battery container on the Ever Ready version has the same Patent Number on the bottom as the hooded lamps that have a 1939 date on them. I assume Ever Ready simply used existing stock of battery boxes for the clip-on helmet lamps. It appears versions of the helmet lamp with a plain cord are relatively scarce compared to those with red and black cords. I've also only encountered a relatively low number of period photos that show the helmet lamp being used. This photograph is probably one of the best. |
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