New This Week:

2.81/5.14 WWII RECOGNITION SET.  Amazing, totally complete ship recognition model set commissioned by the U.S. Navy to train gunners, spotters and pilots in the all important task of recognizing ships as friend or foe.  This full set features a total of 29 individual cast metal model ships of the highest quality and detail.  Each is marked on the bottom of its wooden base with the ship’s name (class), Ship type, Country of origin (Britain), the Maker’s name H.A.Framburg, Chicago, and the Date 12-43.  They are: DRAGON, Light Cruiser; British Navy Tanker/Supply Ship; TYNE Destroyer Tender; SCYLLA, Light Cruiser; “H” Class Destroyer; BLACK SWAN, Modified Sloop;  NELSON, Battleship; QUEEN ELIZABETH, Battleship; WARSPITE, Battleship; KING GEORGE V, Battleship;  ROYAL SOVEREIGN, Battleship;  HAWKINS, Attack Cruiser; HUNT, Destroyer; RIVER, Frigate; ILLUSTRIOUS, Attack Carrier; FURIOUS, Attack Carrier; MALAYA, Battleship; EMERALD, Light Cruiser; CUMBERLAND, Light Cruiser;  EMERALD, Attack Carrier;  DEVONSHIRE, Attack Cruiser; DIDO, Light Cruiser; LEANDER, Light Cruiser; BITER, Attack Carrier; LEANDER, Modified Light Cruiser; SOUTHAMPTON,  Light Cruiser;  ADMIRALTY “VW”;  and TRIBAL, Destroyer.

4.07  CHARMING SCRIMSHAW CROCHET NEEDLE.  A very delicate, precisely-carved knitting/crochet needle fabricated from the dense panbone of a sperm whale.  This expertly carved specimen features a diminutively-carved hand at the top holding a hammer!  The hammer is individually carved and actually moves freely within the grasping hand!  Below, the body of the needle is copiously decorated with carvings and embellishments.  Interestingly, as an indication of age and environment, one side is darkly incised while the reverse is nearly pure white.  6 ½ inches long.  Outstanding original condition in all respects.  WAS $795 NOW! 295

Not available or for sale in California.  Shipped from Massachusetts.

4.12  WHALEBONE CLOTHESPINS.  Matched set of 9 individually hand-made clothespins turned out of the dense whalebone from a sperm whale’s jaw called “panbone.”  This diminutive set is a demonstrable example of utilitarian scrimshaw produced by the whalers in the 19th century.  Each is shaped with a bulbous top and a tapered body with a slot to fit on the clothesline.  All have identical decorative scribe lines at the “waste” above the slot.  2 ¾ inches long each.  Outstanding original condition.  A rare matched set.  289

12.18  EARLY LUSTERWARE MUG.  Delightful early 1800’s earthenware mug with  endearing nautical scenes.  This hard-fired mug depicts both classic nautical scenes, “THE SAILOR’S FAREWELL” and “THE SAILOR’S RETURN!”   The stenciled images on opposite sides are enhanced with the distinctive hand-applied bright pink luster. Two charming poems relate.  First is the sailor’s departure: “Far from Home Across the Sea / To Foreign Climes I go, While far away think on me / And I will remember you.”  Then the obverse depicts his joyous homecoming: “Now safe, returned from dangers past / With joy upon the shore, May no more the tempests blast / Nor oceans angry roar.”  This desirable mug is in excellent original condition with no damage.  It measures 4 ¼ inches wide on the base, 5 ½ inches with the handle and stands 4 inches tall.  Circa 1843.  Rare in this condition, over 180 years old!  295

Literature:  Capt. P.D. Gordon Pugh, O.B.E., Royal Navy, “Naval Ceramics” 1971, The Ceramic Book Company, Newport, England. Plate 92 “Mug inscribed with the Sailor’s Farewell… Purple-Lustered Earthenware, Sunderland, c. 1843.

12.94  CARVED HARDWOOD AWL.  Working sailor's sail making fid beautifully turned and finished from an unidentified dense wood.  Attached to the upper shaft is a leather loop to accommodate the worker's finger for a sure grip.  4 ½ inches long and 5/8 inches wide at the bulbous top.  Outstanding state of original preservation.  A very nice looking nautical "small."  119

AUTHENTIC LIGHTHOUSE. The ultimate! This was an exceptional opportunity to own a very historic relic of America’s rich maritime heritage embodied in the original lamp room from the famous Ballast Point Lighthouse, which served its sentinel duties in the channel of San Diego Bay from 1890 until 1960. This incredibly well-preserved piece of history was built according to specifications laid out by the U.S. Lighthouse Service in 1885. A copy of the original specifications are included as are much printed references and photographs. Erected in 1890, the 5th Order lighthouse was a significant aid to navigation in conjunction with the Point Loma Lighthouse (1850) poised at the entrance to San Diego Bay. Ballast Point Light was situated further inside the massive bay on a point which jutted into the seaway which posed a hazard to shipping. 135 years old! SOLD

HISTORY

On October 2, 1888, recognizing the need for a harbor light in the increasingly congested channel of San Diego Bay, Congress authorized $25,000 for the construction of a lighthouse to be built on Ballast Point. Fashioned in the late Victorian style, the entire structure took 3 months to build beginning in March 1890. The light was first lit on August 1st. It was a sister of the lights at San Luis Obispo and Table Bluff, south of Humboldt Bay. All were wood framed structures with attached living quarters. The ironwork for the lantern was forged in San Francisco and carried south to San Diego by ship. The French firm of Sautter, Lemmonier, & Cie. manufactured the Freznel lens for the Ballast Point Light in 1886. The fixed 5th Order lens was visible for a distance of at least 11 miles.

When California was still part of Mexico the peninsula jutting into San Diego Bay was known as Punta del los Guijarros or “Pebble Point.” For centuries cobblestones washed down by the San Diego River had been deposited on the point. When California gained statehood in 1850 the point was renamed Middle Ground Shoal. As time went on and merchant traffic in the harbor increased, many sailing ships found it convenient to load or discharge the stones as ballast. The practice continued and eventually the name “Ballast Point” stuck.

Accompanying the Ballast Point lighthouse was a huge 2,000 pound fog bell in a wooden tower. In 1928 it was supplanted by a single tone electric diaphone horn.

The first keeper of the light was John M. Nilsson, assigned duty on July 15, 1890. The second was Henry Hall, who took the job on December 1, 1892. Perhaps the most famous keeper was Irish-born David R. Splaine, a Civil War veteran and veteran lighthouse keeper, who assumed the post in 1894, having served at Point Conception, the Farallons and San Diego’s own Point Loma light from 1886-1889.

In 1913 the original old kerosene lamp was replaced with an acetylene burner. Acetylene gave way to electricity in 1928. In 1938 a filter was fitted inside the 5th Order Freznel lens giving the light a distinctive green hue for recognition. One of the last keepers of the light was Radford Franke who recalled receiving the order to “douse the light” upon the news of the attack on Pearl Harbor.

By early 1960 the light was deemed to be of no further service, so in June of that year the lantern room was removed to a salvage yard. The wooden tower and its brick and mortar foundation remained a couple of years later until they too were declared structurally unsafe and demolished. The bell tower continued to survive, mounted with a 375 mm high intensity lamp on its roof. However the value of maintaining any light on Ballast Point diminished with the installation of harbor entrance range lights. In the late 1960’s the bell and its tower were dismantled. The tower found its way to a private residence in Lakeside, California. The bell had a more circuitous later life. It was purchased from a San Diego area junk yard in 1969 for its scrap value of 5 cents per pound! The one ton bell remained on local private property until 1991, when it was put on loan to the San Diego Maritime Museum. In 1999 the bell was transported to the son of the original buyer, living in Colorado. Then in 2002, the bell finally found its way to the home of the owner’s granddaughter living in Vermont, where it rests to this day.

The story of the lantern’s later life is even more fascinating. The nation was just recovering from the Cuban Missile Crisis between JFK and Khrushchev, when in 1964 the Cuban government cut off the fresh water supply to the U.S. Naval base at Guantanamo Bay. By that time, an experimental desalinization plant had been in operation at Point Loma for 2 years. The Navy hastily ordered it to be disassembled and shipped through the Panama Canal to Cuba. A gentleman working as a crane operator during the process noted the shabby lantern room in a trash heap nearby. He inquired as to the fate of the relic and was told it was salvage. Asking if he could purchase it, the yard foreman told him he could “have it” if he would haul it away. With that, for the next 34 years the lantern room served as a gazebo in the backyard of the man’s residence in Bonita, California. It was purchased by the present owners in 1998, fully refurbished, and placed on public display in Old Twon, San Diego. In late 2025 it found its next enduring home on the shores of the Great Lakes in Wisconsin.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

F. Ross Holland, “The Old Point Loma Lighthouse,” 1978, Cabrillo Historical Association, San Diego, California

Jim Gibbs, “The Twilight of Lighthouses,” 1996, Schiffer Publishing, Atglen, PA.

Kin Fahlen and Karen Scanlon, “Lighthouse of San Diego,” 2008, Arcadia Publishing, San Francisco

Kraig Anderson, “Forgotten Ballast Point “Lighthouse” Seeks New Home,” article in “Lighthouse Digest,” East Machias, Maine, September – October 2011, Vol. XX, no. 5 pages 34 – 37.

“Mains’l Haul,” a periodic publication of the San Diego Maritime Association, Summer 1990, Vol. XXVI, No. 4, pp. 11-12.