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The Traffic Gard Kerosene Lantern
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DIETZ
Dietz also offered the Fresnel globe in amber and blue and the globe is marked "DIETZ No. 40". (Red-flashed clear-cast Fresnel globes are common.) Also note the "plain" red globe that was available. This was also made in a pale amber marked(cast) Dietz (in an oval) 855. Again, frame color isn't mentioned but filler caps were available in Dietz standard blue as well as yellow and red (the latter believed to be the standard color for Traffic Gards).In 1953 the R. E. Dietz Company of Syracuse, New York, acquired Embury and the Model 40 continued to be modified before it was taken out of production in 1962. (Recent information suggests that it may have remained in production until 1971.) Even though some Dietz lantern operations in Syracuse were moved to Hong Kong in 1956 the production of Model 40s probably continued in New York until the latter year. (Although it appears that the filler caps/spout and 855 globe were probably made in Hong Kong/China sometime after '56.) But where in New York state? Barrett (THE ILLUSTRATED ENCYCLOPEDIA OF RAILROAD LIGHTING, VOLUME I, THE RAILROAD LANTERN) writes, " The Embury Manufacturing Company closed its doors on December 31, 1952.... Within a few months [Dietz] announced that all manufacturing would be consolidated at the Dietz plant in Syracuse, New York....". Yet Hobson states, "...[Dietz] continued to operate [the plant] in Warsaw under the Embury name until the 1960s, when it was closed down." Hobson confirmed this with former employees in Warsaw. This puzzle is similar to the fact that blue globes marked "EMBURY NO. 40" are known to exist --- but the catalog clip on the Embury page shows no blue globes in the Embury line. Perhaps blue and amber globes marked for Embury were ordered by Dietz in Syracuse for the Embury factory in Warsaw after 1953. In February of 1999 I received further correspondence on this subject: I talked to a retired southern "collector" down in Nashville 2 years or so ago who was mainly into the Embury lantern line who was also from Warsaw NY and had worked for the Embury back then. I had a few Embury's with me at the time ... a "Windsor" with the brass cap ... and he was interested in it since he didn't have one (didn't buy it though). We chatted a bit about the Embury company. Per his recollection, the factory closed end of '52 and the contents were sold at a big auction the following spring which he vividly remembered, much of it bought by Dietz. Also per him, the factory itself was bought by an elevator company (foreign, at least, as I remember him saying .. the town was not very happy about foreigners moving in). Now, I realize this is only one man's account and I don't know him from Adam, but based on that and what I've read, I've concluded that Dietz probably bought and relocated the equipment to Syracuse, together with rights and resumed manufacture there, using the Embury tooling, dies, residual hardware, etc, replacing and modifying as the old stock became depleted and tooling wore out
The two primary types of Model 40s that are marked Dietz:: Type 2 - the transition modifications Type 3 - the final 1960's Dietz design
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