A New York & Boston Line Fixed globe lantern made by the New England Glass Company. Find the collector story at the bottom. A companion presentation lantern that came with this lantern to this is an adjacent lot in this auction. A very clean, probably never used lantern. This lantern is probably Civil War era, possibly earlier. The NY&BL is cut (copper wheel) on a free blown glass globe. The globe also has applied flanges to the top and bottom. This is standard lettering for the New England Glass Company lanterns made for railroads. The frame has a few interesting feature. The top assembly has 3 horizontal rows of holes. This is most often ground on NEG later brasstop models. The base has the standard rounded 5 point star intake holes. The bell is an 1854 patent model with a small collar that goes around just the very bottom of the glass fount. These break off all the time. It's pretty clear that the original japan/creosote finish is intact. The plaster shows no signs of soot. A very clean lantern.

The New York & Boston Line has a few lives. It was a marketing arrangement of different railroads looking for passenger and express traffic between the named cities. This pre-dates the New Haven Thames River bridge route which was built in 1889. At one time this was called the New York & Boston Air Line. The route sometimes went through obscure locations rather than trying to hit minor metropolitan areas. Think of the New York & New England route.

This lantern is mine and I acquired it from the family of Stanley Roberts after he passed away. See some of Stan's lanterns in Barrett's book. One of my favorite collecting stories is how Stan got this lantern. He met a guy at a Maine flea market (early 1970s?) and got talking lanterns. It turns out this guy described a pair of lanterns. Stan got to see them and wrote down his phone number so he could be contacted if the guy ever wanted to sell them. Years later Stan gets a phone call from a widow, yes these lanterns were available. For once in his life (life long Maine resident) Stan paid the tolls to drive on the Maine Turnpike to get the two lanterns.

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