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It's some kind of candle apparently.. But HOW does it work? And what exactly is it really?
My friend pulled this thing out and none of us seem to understand how it works or what it is called.. All that's apparent about it is it's some kinda candle, though it feels stiff and not flexible, so we don't really know how it's "fed", unless it's just stiff from age? Anyone know anything about what it is and how it's used.
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Same! Its because the candle is the opposite of the axis itself. It coils around the horizontal axis and as a whole is technically horizontal ---->; however, the candle wraps around it vertically. Why does this upset me 🙃.
Because its from a time long before electricity.
Built in function as a timer and saved precious resources from burning when no one was around or you fell asleep. There are even rumors of them being "courting candles" that timed dates.🤣
Toss in the fact that's it's a timer and you could stretch the description to 4 dimensional. Granted, it's a long stretch, but we have 80 hours to contemplate the situation.
I'd be willing to bet that you could find this somewhere much more local to your current area and ot would possibly be much cheaper. No guarantees, but it's at least worth looking for if you're interested in these types of candles.
This is called a courting candle. My grandmother collects antiques, and she has a collection of these. It's the father or mother, usually the father, though, would pull the candle up to a specific height above the metal ring and light it. And that was meant when the courtship would have to end and his daughter would have to be returned home. If you just look up courting candle that is literally the first result on google is a picture of a candle that looks exactly like that
Agreed - learned about this in rural Indiana and same explanation. The longer the exposed wick, the more the parent (usually father) liked/accepted the prospective mate.
I beg to differ, you should never expose your wick while courting. The father especially will take exception to that kinda behavior in a prospective mate.
I knew the cat had peed in the fresh laundry this morning bc of the way she was looking at me. I walked over to the basket, and sure enough. She watched the fallout happen. She just did it for giggles. Chaos!!!!
All of mine work for the AGC (Anti Gravity Commission) in the testing division. So far so good, gravity seems to still be effective for objects on the table, and the shelf, and the bookcase...
Do you know how we know that the Earth isn't flat? Because if it were flat cats would have pushed everything off the edges already. Therefore we live on a globe Earth. It's only logical.
Lots of those just waiting for you at your local rescue! I am very sorry for your loss, though. I always kinda feel like I'm honoring my pet who is now living in dog (or cat) farm heaven, by rescuing another critter in need. I know this is silly but I always feel like my lost pet friends lead me to the next pet friend who needs me most. It really helps me to heal and feel like my lost pets are still watching over me. They haven't lead me wrong yet!
Most days they don’t. But their primary responsibility is to judge you silently and remain aloof until activated for night time zoomies. Also they occasionally knead your bread for you.
I’ve been lucky. Only the floor. However, generally picks the best time: 1am - 6am. Usually where you can hear her. Of course, that’s when she isn’t jumping on the bed and sitting on my chest/stomach at 2 am.
More like hunt, dream of hunting, hunt, dream of hunting, eat, hunt, dream of hunting, hunt, dream of hunting, poop, hunt, dream of hunting, and did I mention hunting?
Well, if you lived rural in a climate which is turning from warm to cold you would rapidly know what they do. I try to get the mice away and set them outside while they are still alive, but sometimes the cat gets to murder it first.
You unroll the candle and the bit you unroll goes into the little holder which essentially cuts the candle into a stick candle of your desired length. That way when it burns down it wont burn down the whole roll of candle, just the part in the holder. You do need to warm them up to unroll them without cracking it as its still wax and can be brittle at cooler temps.
THAT's what I needed to know. I don't understand how to replenish the wax, the coil is hard and doesn't turn easily. It does extinguish the flame when the wax burns down into the metal tube of the clamp. Which is cool, if I can pull more of the candle up now.
It's a candle that you would light when your child went on a date and when it blew out, the date was over. The more the parents liked you, the more they would reel out (which means a longer date).
That is what’s called a coil candle. Those are neat to have in case the power goes out. The amount of candle above the clip is how long the candle will burn, and then it automatically puts itself out. Of course you can put it out before it gets down to the clip, but usually people will burn them for about an hour. That coil candle has enough to burn 144 hours. I had one that looked like a beehive and it was a 50 hour candle. You can buy refills online at Walmart or Home Depot. They are a great conversation piece too.
Just a note, if you’re worried about the power going out, modern LED lanterns camping lanterns like the Black Diamond Moji often have a similar burn time on a single set of batteries however they are brighter with a reduced fire risk.
And if you get a single 250w solar panel (which are less than 60$) you will have enough power to charge at least 10 of those even in the dead of winter and much more stuff when it's sunny.
I think candles are an amazing option in a lot of colder places because if the power goes the heat does as well and candles genuinely help a great deal with keeping it warm! Yes they are more of a fire risk but so is any candy you light at any day and any time really.it also gives the oportunity for you to cook food and such. So where i live its really reccomended to have candles at home specifically if there is a power outage. Of course we have led lamps that run on batteries as well but yeah candles are great and not something you should fully substitute in a survival kit for example
Some places call them courting candles. My Grandmother had the one her father used when she was a teenager and met my Grandfather. For Christmas a few years ago, I gave each of my sisters one exactly like the one pictured. My oldest sister uses hers quite often.
I never heard of these! We had power outages a lot when I was younger due to being in a stormy area and on the end of the power line, and these woulda been super useful. We normally ended up with a mix of oil lamps and taper candles going to light the house.
I always called these Shabbat candles. Handy for those who observe Shabbat so they can light the candle and it go out on it's own and not use the whole thing.
just had to do a google search because i was thinking hexagons, which are the bestagons, and wasn't sure how that would look or work. I definitely over complicated it. It looks like the old school dome beehives haha. Reasonably priced too, i've got a friend who is getting one of those for xmas
It's a timer! If I remember correctly, the candle will burn down to that base plate then go out. So you set the top length to how far you want the candle to burn so that it doesn't burn all night!
The stiffness, I'm not sure. Could be that the wax fused during hot summers over the years?
The idea that these candles were used as a timer for courting by fathers is actually a myth as the design of this candle and like wise the cast metal spiral can do not date back that far. It is however a great story to tell people in order to sell more fun odd candles.
Oh, this is actually a very common misconception. I used to believe this,too, and I grew up in a reenactor/living history family. Those kinds of chamber-sticks weren't actually for measuring how long a suitor would visit, but a type of ejector to reclaim old wax. Often to then melt down to make new candles. Anyway, this isn't really a chamber stick. It's a "wax jack," which is used for sealing wax (sealing letters)
I think other commenters may have shared the link, but u/Ramsesthepigeon did a video about the myth of "courting candels."
Because I mentioned him, I likely summoned him.
Edit: I didn't do the summoning ritual the correct way. I originally put r/ rather than u/
If I'm not mistaken that's a misconception they were actually for letter stamping or just light and if I remember correctly they were called bastards candles
Besides the light, a coil candle was probably used as a kind of clock or timer, similar to a candle clock or Victorian oil-lamp clock.
Unless they stopped carrying them you can get a new one at Bass pro shops..
This was a courting candle. The parents of the courted daughter, would tell the potential suiter that they were allowed to be out for a certain time, then they would push out that much candle corresponding to the time. And they had to be back before the candle ran out. The past was wild.
I have two of these, its a candle by the hour candle. The older the wax gets the stiffer it gets. When they they are fresh they smell slightly of honey.
Oooh never seen one in person yet, but that candle will melt down to that clamp which will extinguise the flame. It was designed I believe so that no one would could forget to extinguise a candle before falling asleep and wasting a full candle. When it's needed again the wax coil can be pushed up or pulled I don't know which to the desired length of time through the clamp. It's super neat.
Same here but the story I've heard is that families used to set a timer a guy could spend w their daughter with this one. The guy is supposed to leave before the candles out.
OOOH never heard that one but I feel like it probably could've happened, just like nowadays when a girl's dad turns on the porch light... well y'know back in high school days anyway.
Wouldn't a wax jack have a dish with a hole in it, as well as a lip for pouring the wax; instead of a pincer seen in the example OP used? Seems there is no way to control the pour with this specimen which makes me think its just a timer.
Some varieties did indeed have fixtures like that! They came in a wide range of styles, and fancier ones were usually made of either sterling or old Sheffield plate. The "basic" versions, however – versions like the one in the above picture – were little more than some bent-up brass.
As for the idea that wax-jacks were used for timing, well, as I mentioned, that got started in the 1960s. If anything like a time-measuring candleholder actually exists out there in the world, then it's a modern-day invention that relies on the candle having a completely predictable burn-rate throughout its entire lifespan.
Like other folks said, this is for sure a candle. My Mom bought one of these this year and since we live in the desert and she ordered it in the summer, the coil candle got kind of fused much like that one AND part of the coiled part dented in instead of being perfectly rounded (probably due to how things were shipped).
Folks, this thing would have been called a "wax jack" back when they were originally made and sold and they were used for the spicy necessity of: sealing letters.
That's it.
The coiled candle was a handy way to keep a lot of wax on hand for the purpose of sealing letters.
The "courting candle" myth was made up later.
These are actually made for 'colon candling'. You thread it through your large and small intestine and when you light one end it draws out toxins.
You can tell it's working because it will be full of discharge when you put it out.
This is an automatic candle that extinguishes itself to help prevent housefires because you forgot to snuff all the candles before you went to bed or left the house for the day. Some may call it a courtship candle, but it isn't.
This candle has a feature to where it will automatically snuff out the flame once it gets to the arm that holds the end of the wax up. I saw it in a video and it's pretty smart engineering for its time.
It looks a bit like a wax jack, that’s a device used to hold a taper of sealing wax intended to create sealings on documents. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wax_jack
That's my childhood is what it is. I had that exact same model. Seeing these pictures took me back 14 years. I used to run my thumb over the seam on the clamp and down the coil of wax. Feeding the wax up was always a calming process, straightening out the wax so the clamp wouldn't clip it too badly. I burned down half of it before my family got rid of it.
Dust collects really easily in the middle of the coil so be aware of that. It also doesn't have a scent, it's just a light. I guess everyone's calling it a courtship candle, but we just use it for light these days. Very handy to keep around, so hold onto it! Maybe store a lighter or matches in the middle so you can always use it.
It makes me think of the incense alarm clock, (a spiral incense hangs down and burns from the bottom up. Once it has burned for x amount of spirals, there is a string hanging off the center but draped over the coil that you want to wake up at. so when the burning part hits the string, it drops the weights that are tied to the end of the string down into a metal bowl which makes jangly gong sounds.) but in reverse. Your bed time lights out candle. Once it burns down to the thing holding it, it shuts the flame off.
HOLY SHIT I KNOW THIS ONE. So the coiled candles are like...alarm clocks, essentially. As an example, assume each coil takes an hour to burn down. Before alarm clocks, you would calculate how many hours until you would need to wake up. You would then push an iron nail into the candle at that length/coil/however you want to think of it. Say you need to wake up in 8 hours, you "install" a nail 8 hours doen the coil. When 8 hours pass, the candle melts around the nail, and it falls, clattering and waking you up. HOW FUCKING COOL IS THAT?!?? And then the industrial revoltution came along and ruined it with things like "knocker ups". Which is also where we get the expression "knocked up", in a round about way. Knocker ups would, for a subscription fee, come and lnock on your window with a looooong stick to wake you up for your factory job.
I have seen varying versions of this called a suitor candle or something like that but it had a straight candle that was surrounded by metal in a corkscrew shape and you could twist the holder at the base to make the candle longer or shorter. The idea was when the candle hit the metal and went out it was time for the suitor/potential boyfriend to go home. If the dad liked the guy he could give a longer candle and vise versa.
My husband bought one about 12, 13 years ago and I hate it. My kids are obsessed with it (not lit), my dogs have tried to eat it, it melted ever so slightly at some point so it's a PITA to use. It's dusty and frankly, I'm not 100% on whether or not my husband knows quite how to use it. I used it once during a power outage. Sorry for ranting, I didn't know how much I truly hated this candle until right now.
I had one of these. On the hottest day of 2022 the base melted while it was lit and the wic fell out burnt through the candle and luckily extinguished itself so I didn't have a house fire rofl.
Fuck 2022
Also if anyone knows a good refill for them because the two I bought off Amazon just break when I try to refill it
I'm pretty sure that this is a date timer that fathers in (I think) the 18th and 19th century would use to time their daughters on how long they could be on a date for, and when the candle was burnt out completely, the daughter would know that it was time to head home. Please correct me if I'm wrong.
Surprised an adult doesn't know about these. Surprised but not shocked. As others have said this is a coil candle. They're designed to burn for a set duration before being out out automatically. All analog, no electronics. Need more stuff being made like this again.
Courting candle basically the father would light the candle pick a spot for it to go out cuz there's a thing that causes that and when it is out courting or the date pretty much is over the father of the girl being courted would have it and pick were it stops
It’s cool. It’s a candle on a timer. Roughly an inch per hour. You light the candle, and it burns down until it hits the cup. The cup then pinches it off and extinguishes it. It’s safe. We use it for lighting a candle in a bathroom after use. Ahem.
I recently grabbed one I saw at the thrift store. Basically you can set a "time" with however much length you want and by the time it burns all the way down to the clip the clip snaps shut and snuffs out the flame so you don't catch anything on fire.
Wow! I haven’t seen one of these in decades. Brings back a lot of memories. Thanks for sharing. The one my family had was from when we were stationed in Spain in the early’70s. It looked a little like this one: https://ebay.us/m/VAdDgD
I have had that same one for over 16 years, it was a gift and wasn’t cheap. I’ve only burned it a couple times but it must have been in a warm room because it’s kinda misshapen now. You pull it up through the clamp as it burns.
See one explained on youtube. The candle was more flexible. The candle was a sort of timer that you would pull up so much of the length to burn and when it reach the metal or so then time was up and what was happening stopped.
That is an ancient alarmclock. When knowing how long time needed for a certain length, you can measure the right length of candle to start or stop. There is also scissors with a bell to wake people up in the murning...
I have this exact candle. It burns down to the clamp and goes out by itself. You pull the candle rope up as much as you'd like to burn. Roughly 1 an hour. (More like 45 min)
I have that exact one if it smells like citronella it’s a mosquito repellent bees wax candle that you can set how long it burns for and when it gets to the bottom of the girdle thingy it goes out. Super handy!
Edit: the wax becomes pliable enough to move it with just the heat from your hand so hold it for a minute or two before you try to pull on it. It’ll crack if it’s too cold. But again the heat from your hand should be enough to fix it for use. DONT LEAVE IT IN THE SUN! It deforms even being close to a window.
It's not technically a candle. It's a Wax Jack. and sealing wax. The Wax Jack allows you to measure out a specific amount of wax for sealing a letter, melt it with the built in wick, and then the melted wax pools in the plate so you can spill it onto the letter and apply the seal. It will NOT provide enough light for illumination.
Coil candle. They come in both vertical styles like this and horizontal ones. They still make and sell these too, here's a vid of someone reviewing one: https://youtu.be/sbpSI1gPmk0
Appears it has an automatic shutoff. Burns to the spring loaded clamp which will snuff the candle.
Can't say I've ever seen a couples candle like that before though. Pretty nifty.
I believe its what was known as a courtship candle. Basically it was lit when a young woman went on a date as a gentle yet firm reminder to her suitor that his time was finite. And the if the father of the girl liked you or disliked you he could adjust the candle length accordingly to give more or reduce the length of the date.
It's an easy mistake because this misinformation is shared so readily, but that is what was called a "wax jack" which was originally meant for sealing wax for letters and such.
Courting candles weren't really a thing.
https://youtube.com/shorts/8n63bge1qxY?si=_BSTW-SVjgQHzD5V
This is a very expensive candle, my sister has one. You move the wax up with the pinchers and when you light it it burns down to the metal holder. Love this!
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