Aida Incandescent mantle burners

Aida burner without gallery

When I purchased the burner it was missing its gallery so I can not show it.

The Aida burner was developed by by J. Hirshhorn of Germany in 1906. A version of this burner was imported into North America around 1907 or 1908.

Unfortunately the companies that imported these burners left little to no documentation behind that survived during the last 100 plus years so little is known about their sales and distribution in North America. What documentation survived is mostly from their homeland in Germany. In North America they are just known by a few burners that occasionally come up for public sale.

Aida wick adjustment knob

According to Anton Kaim the Aida logo of a horn wrapped around a stag is a pictograph of the Company name. Hirschhorn means Deer horn in English.

The construction of the Aida burner base is very similar to that of the Fellboelin burner base. There is the outer wick tube, an inner wick tube, both with slots along the lower side that is ringed with a brass connector piece that channels air through the tubes into the inner wick tube. See the Fellboelin web page for a disassembled view of the connecting sheet metal.

Note the dimple on the side of the outer wick tube near the top. This is one of four dimples evenly spaced around the outer wick tube. These dimples anchor the removable flange.

Aida burner threads
Note the ring of half holes around the base of the outer wick tube.

Aida burner top
Looking down the top of the inner wick tube you can see the sheet metal assembly that anchors the flame spreader.

The flame spreader is made from brass. The diameter changes between row 4 and row 5 of the holes. The top section is 9/16ths dia. The bottom section is 11/16ths dia. There are 6 rows of holes and a single slot at base.

Aida burner flange ring

ADIA burner basket

ABOVE: Aida Gallery
Right and below: The wick riser assembly used on the Aida burner is the same assembly commonly used on most of the period German manufactured burners

Wick holder assembly used on the Adia burner

Most German burners that were imported into North America were imported by just one or two companies and remained in the North American market for 5 years or less before the beginning of World War I in Europe. With few exceptions German designed and manufactured burners have a brief and simple history in North America that can often be summed up in just a couple of sentences. Which is unfortunate because the evolution of a new lighting technology is told in their designs. Early American burner designers examined the existing German designs and built their first incandescent mantle burner designs based upon the best German designs available to them at the time.

These German burners have a richer history in the country where they were designed. If you would like to learn more about the history of these burners and how their designs evolved, the place to look is a book by Anton Kaim called "The Evolution of the Kerosene Mantle Burner". This is a self published book sold directly by the author and does a very good job of covering the inception and comparative evolution of the mantle burner. This book an excellent reference for burner and parts identification. The book covers the Burners developed in Europe, German burners imported to North America and Aladdin brand burners. I consider this book to be a must for the book shelf of anyone interested mantle burner design, evolution and history.

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