Stumbled over this french site with lamps and stoves and found this things: http://lampterophiliste.free.fr/Allumoir/Allumoir.htm What are they? Some sort of firestarters, but what does the electricity do? http://lampterophiliste.free.fr/indexa.htm
They look like old lighters. I think allumoir is lighter in English. Maybe the electrical version is the predecessor to the piezo lighter? sam
I think they are cigarette lighters. The brass ones look like they just have a burning wick you light your fag from. Here's an advert showing how the electric ones work. Check this one out that's currently up for sale on eBay France. It's from the late 1800's and the wick was lit with a potassium dichromate battery!
So theres high voltage between the two metal "rakes" and you short it for sparks to ignite the "handle"/lighter?
As best I can tell, the lighter had a wick inside a metal rod with a wooden handle at one end to hold it by. This wick would be stored in a flammable liquid like kerosene. To use it you would pull the wick out of its holder and draw it down the teeth of the lighter. The metal rod holding the wick would complete the circuit and provide sparks to light the wick. When finished you'd snuff out the wick by simply dropping it back into its holder. The one in the advertisement must be a later model because the wick has a bakelite handle.
