GEC Z8243 'Two-Forty'

The GEC Z8243 'Two-Forty' lantern is an early form of a fluorescent lantern believed to date around 1951. Its an extremely large lantern, as was many lanterns of the period, featuring a huge two tone bowl with two stacked refractor plates each side, and a canopy that the much later Z9454 would come to use. I can't imagine these were very popular when they were new, and these days I only know of 3 of these lanterns to survive, all thankfully in collections.

Upon acquisition, the lantern was in stellar condition, and needs little work to bring it back. The canopy had been painted in service, however when some paint chipped off when I was trying to get the remains of a bracket out the spigot, it revealed amazingly shiny aluminium beneath, telling me it had been painted as soon as it was installed. This prompted me to get all the paint off, but a blowtorch wasn't even touching it, all it done was made the paint stick better, so with trial and error, I ended up having to use the claw side of a hammer, and carefully chip all the paint off.

It's very unusually a switch start setup, featuring two 4 pin starters. Closer inspection revealed the Ecko starter is thermal, whilst the Philips is a normal glow bottle starter. Since they're series wired, usually two single starters would pose and issue on starting, however the arrangement of thermal and glow bottle seems to pose no issue at all, and both tubes light immediately when power is applied.
Restoration will involve filling in the holes in the bowl, and the gear cover being resprayed white. Other than that, it needs very little to no work.