©AWMoore 2004
Some enthusiasts would argue that Austramax is the only enduring Australian pressure lantern. It is true that the likes of Coleman and Aladdin have allowed manufacture of their products under licence in Australia, and that others such as Gloria and Handi have manufactured their own products with some limited success, and that Kopsen & Nettlefold produced very capable clones of most of the pre-war Tilley Australian export range. However, these have all fallen by the wayside, leaving the Victoria family owned Austramax company as the last operational manufacturer.
Production of Austramax lanterns began in West Bruswick, Victoria, during the early 1940s, at a time when importing goods from other countries was fraught with political and practical difficulty. There was a clear need in this period for Australia to reduce it's dependancy on England, and to become much more self sufficient. Records show that a patent application related to the Austramax Co. was made and granted in 1945/6 for lantern components. In the years following WW2, the company also produced a range of domestic products, including small kitchen-appliances and floor cleaning machines, following on into industrial electrical equipment. All the lantern parts were hand made at that time, until purpose designed tooling was brought into use. The present owners took over around 1950.
The lantern range is small - apparently only one basic design was produced. This was a single mantle kerosene lantern, similar in shape and style to the Coleman single mantle range, and was indeed produced at the same time as Coleman lanterns such as the 247 and 249 were made under licence. The Austramax was and still is a 300cp lantern, and has remained virtually unchanged. Modern lanterns are different in that there is more plastic, a common trend in almost all manufacturing industries! Particularly disliked by users is the plastic pressure release valve, which makes a really nice lantern feel rather cheap. On the other hand, the reflector and guard is a real Aussie materpiece - strong enough to withstand a gravel onslaught from a road-train!
As far as I can tell, the progression of model numbers has remained very simple, 1/300, 2/300 and the current 3/300. Colours have varied, with black, red, and green hoods over a plated brass tank. Some variants with mottled grey porcelaine hoods have been reported as well, and there are slight differences in hood shape between models. Peak production was in the 1960s, with over 50,000 lanterns made each year, current production is probably less than one fiftieth of that.
References:
1) Personal Communications, collectors and suppliers.
2) Strong G (2002) Historic lamp lights up 50 years of family enterprise. Extract from "The Age". Melbourne, May 2002.
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