Help me find a light?

lampeDépêche

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May 15, 2012
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It's called a "Donzerly" light, possibly after the inventor? Apparently, it's the ideal light for use in watching flags, esp. over ramparts.

Probably US manufacture, possibly UK, date around 1812.

Any leads?
 

lampeDépêche

Flashlight Enthusiast
Joined
May 15, 2012
Messages
1,241
Okay, more data: It's useful for looking at broad stripes and bright stars.

I keep hearing about this thing, and I want to know where to buy one.
 

Sambob

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Dec 17, 2015
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That actually took me a few minutes to get that....Donzerly light.....Dawns early light....WOW.
The Star spangled Banner:
O. say can you see, by the dawn's early light,
What so proudly we hailed at the twilight's last gleaming,
Whose broad stripes and bright stars through the perilous fight,
O'er the ramparts we watched, were so gallantly streaming?
And the rockets' red glare, the bombs bursting in air,
Gave proof through the night that our flag was still there;
O. say does that star-spangled banner yet wave
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave?

On the shore dimly seen through the mists of the deep,
Where the foe's haughty host in dread silence reposes,
What is that which the breeze, o'er the towering steep,
As it fitfully blows, half conceals, half discloses?
Now it catches the gleam of the morning's first beam,
In full glory reflected now shines in the stream:
'Tis the star-spangled banner, O. long may it wave
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave.

And where is that band who so vauntingly swore
That the havoc of war and the battle's confusion,
A home and a country, should leave us no more?
Their blood has washed out their foul footsteps' pollution.
No refuge could save the hireling and slave
From the terror of flight, or the gloom of the grave:
And the star-spangled banner in triumph doth wave,
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave.
 

bykfixer

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Aug 9, 2015
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20,445
Location
Dust in the Wind
It's called a "Donzerly" light, possibly after the inventor? Apparently, it's the ideal light for use in watching flags, esp. over ramparts.

Probably US manufacture, possibly UK, date around 1812.

Any leads?

You mean 1912, right?
In 1812 they were still using fire on a stick to see by.



It's slang for "dawns early light".

Coulda been a term coined for early military flashlights as back then (circa 1912) the typical flashlight had a floody beam due to convex lenses.





1915 Franco



Circa 1917 Franco miner light.
At that point the Vulcanized rubber body lights were the most durable. Before that most lights were made of a heavy cardboard. May have been painted brass though.


Circa 1918 adjustable beam Rayovac cop light.


Look up "Comet" flashlights and Ever Ready (2 words) flashlights. But my 'guess' is that it was a phrase coined for a genre of flashlights such as 'cop light', 'miner light' or some other style of flashlight based on the shape of the head, lens and reflector of that era.
 
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