Handel

Handel lamps have long been a desirable investment in the collecting community. The company was founded in 1885 in Meriden, CT by the partnership of Philip J. Handel and Adolph Eydam. The original partnership dissolved in 1892 when Eydam left to join competitor C.F. Monroe. By 1903, Handel was relocated in a larger manufacturing facility and was managed by a new partnership between Handel, Antone Teich and Albert Parlow. With the success of Edison's incandescent light-bulb in 1879, the company enjoyed continuous growth and became best known for their "Reck Decorated" painted shades, meaning hand-painted. Fine artists of the community were recruited into the company from the local immigrant population, with names such as Bedgie, Runge, Parlow, Broggi and Palme found on prime examples of their best work.

Philip Handel died in 1914, passing the leadership of the company to his wife Fanny Hirschfeld Handel. Mrs. Handel remarried in 1918 and a year later gave up control of the company to her cousin ,William F. Handel, who had been Director of Sales prior to assuming the Presidency.

Recognizing the public's taste for fine workmanship, the company thrived through William Handel's aggressive advertising in Good Housekeeping, House Beautiful, Harpers Bazaar and Vogue, the more popular periodicals of the time. As the economic strength of the middle class began to falter in the 1920s, so followed the livelihood of the Handel Company, finally ceasing production in 1936 and dissolving the corporation in 1941.

Still very desirable, these high-quality yet practical works of art can sell for thousands of dollars, with some of the more rare and choice examples reaching $10,000 to $20,000.