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AB Lux
In the 1890´s, the Swedish engineer, David Kempe was working on a method to heat up melass in order to produce syrup. For this purpose he used a Primus stove but found that keeping the pressure by pumping was too cumbersome. To get around this, he combined tank with carbonated gas with a pressure reduction valve and in this way he got a constant pressure to the stove. This system worked excellent and he soon found also other use for this system. Together with another engineer, H. Rustige, they developed a table pressure lamp for kerosene in 1897 based on the same principle. In 1898, the production of this lamp started by the firm Kastengren and Carlsson in Stockholm, which in the year after was changed to AB David Kempes Lampa. In 1901, AB Lux was founded by Sven Carlsson to explore new inventions and designs in the field of the kerosene mantle light. This company also took over the production and patents from David Kempes Lampa. In the beginning the production was concentrated to lamps for indoor use but very soon also lamps for outdoor use were developed. The sound from the burning lamps were considered to be too high for indoor use and therefor AB Lux concentrated in developing lamps for use in factories as well as outdoors where the sound level was of less importance. The mantles for the lamps were in the beginning imported from Germany but in 1901, Sven Carlsson starts a new company, AB Keros, for production of mantles under license from Auers. This company moves to Sodertalje in 1907 and becomes the biggest factory in Scandinavia for mantles. In 1908, AB Lux moves in to new facilities on the island of Lilla Essingen in Stockholm and the same year they also start a factory in Riga to keep up with the increased demand in Russia as well as other Baltic countries. AB Lux sets up its own subsidiary companies also in several other countries:
In England the company Anglo-Swedish Lighting & Heating
Syndicate Carlsson & Co. is formed and located in London. In Germany, the manufacturing rights are sold to Hugo Schneider AG in Leipzig but very soon this company starts competing with Lux on other markets. The growing popularity of the Lux lamp made other companies to start similar production. Only in Sweden, four different makes were available like the Rex Lamp produced by AB Eskilstuna Separator. However, the most difficult competitor was AB Aladdin in Sundbyberg outside Stockholm. This company had started a similar production in 1905 and when they also started to produce spare parts for the Lux products, which they sold at considerable lower price, the situation was no longer acceptable. AB Lux started a court case against Aladdin for patent rights and in 1913 the court judged in AB Lux favour, which made it possible for AB Lux to buy all the shares in Aladdin AB and thus take over the company. Starting in 1904, AB Lux took up production of kerosene pressure stoves in competition with several other manufacturers. The first type was a copy of the well-known Primus stove but equipped with a burner and a cleaning device patented by Lux. In 1912 the production was up to 4,000 stoves per week and of 14 different models. However, the stove production never gave a satisfactory profit why the entire stock, together with tools and machinery was sold to AB Optimus in 1914. In 1913, AB Lux also started a production of blow lamps but this only continued for a couple of years.
All these Lux blow lamps are from a Russian catalogue by the courtesy of Neil McRae.
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