This elegantly unembellished candle holder allows you to draw up just as much candle as you choose, automatically extinguishing itself after the allotted time. Ever three inches provides about an hour of light, putting an entire beeswax coil in the 144-hour range. Refills are $27. I’m shamed to say I don’t know what the going average candles-per-hour price is across the industry, but that seems a bit expensive, especially when the whole thing costs $41 in the first place.
Still, were they not backordered, it’s likely once would be winging its way to my home already. [via Red Ferret]
Very cool.
I guess you’ll have to MIND YOUR OWN BEESWAX, until you can order one.
I believe I saw these once described as “courting candles”, where a young couple were allowed a certain length of the candle for necking in relative privacy. Once the flame went out…the beau had better be gone!
Oh….and the refills are expensive because the type of candle is unusual and cannot be made by the usual mass production methods. Requires special equipment, more time, so more $$$.
These things are in every “bunch of random stuff you don’t really need but really want” catalogue. You can get them all sorts of places online, as well, not just that site.
Since they’re nothing new, you might want to try looking for one used. The problem, of course, is Mamayama’s point about the cost of the candle.
I’m not sure making those candles requires particularly specialized equipment, since I’d bet many cheap candles are now cast as continuous extrusions…The hard part may be finding the right wax mix to be flexible enough to coil and uncoil yet have a high enough melting point to survive until it’s used without solidifying into a single block. (I wonder whether they dust the outside of the candle with something to keep coils from sticking together too badly.)
Of course, given a long tube, you could dip your own thin candles. You might not be able to get them to coil and uncoil nicely (see above re wax mixes), or make them as long as the coils, but you ought to be able to produce something that would work with the automatic snuffer.
Heck, standard-size Chanukkah candles might be thin enough to fit this thing…
Huh–how curious.
I own one of these, and I definitely received it as a white elephant gift-exchange gift a few years ago. I doubt that the anonymouos donor paid $40, as the limit was $15, so either this particular online vendor has handsome margins on their antiquated products, or it was re-gifted.
At first, I thought the thing was sort of silly, but it grew on me! When lit, the candle projects a definitive Ben Franklin vibe.
Serendipitously, mine is due for a refill, so once I compare some prices, I’ll be able to restock!
$14.99 for the replacement on sale via Sundance Catalog. I actually bought the candle itself also on sale about a month ago but sent it back because it was very difficult to uncoil and reshape the candle to fit into the holder without breaking it.
http://www.sundancecatalog.com/shopping/product/detailmain.jsp?itemType=PRODUCT&iProductID=8209&itemID=8209
Needs a reflector to be really useful as a reading lamp.