My rain lamp

About my own rain lamp, manufactured by Johnson Industries, serial number 73788.

Background: Jamar Restaurant, eBay, etc.

One of the first rain lamps I ever saw was in Jamar Restaurant, La Mesa, California, from 1969-1970. That rain lamp was the most memorable part of the restaurant for me at the time, and I always liked it and in later years toyed with the idea of buying one. I finally found a rain lamp on eBay in 2005 that was as similar to the one in Jamar Restaurant as I could remember, and I figured that was the most meaningful commercial model of rain lamp I could ever buy, so I bought it.


My vintage rain lamp from eBay, probably the same type used in Jamar Restaurant.

Whereas most rain lamps hang with a chain, the Jamar rain lamp stood on a counter top and therefore was larger than most. Like the standard style rain lamp, it contained a seminude, golden Grecian style female statue in the center, green foliage at the bottom, a single layer of slanted strands, and did not rotate. My family used to stand around and admire it after dining at the restaurant, since it was near the cashier's counter on the way out. I was interested in knowing how it worked (I recognized it as functionally similar to the one at Disneyland), and my mother (now a grandmother) liked the Grecian statue and overall effect.

The restaurant used to have a small black-and-white sign on their rain lamp, I believe handprinted and tucked into the foliage, that used to read something like "Please don't touch the strands. Finger oil interferes with the dripping effect. Droplets are glycerine, not water." Nowadays this entire message would seem like nonsense to me. The fluid is mineral oil, not glycerin, and a tiny bit of skin oil wouldn't make any difference on a strand flowing with mineral oil.

Jamar Restaurant is still in business (12-18-05), although they have remodeled their interior extensively since the 1970s, and their rain lamp, which used to be directly ahead on a special counter to the left of the cashier's counter as diners entered, is long gone. I believe the old photo shown below, from a postcard postmarked 1963, shows the restaurant interior as I knew it in 1969-1970.


The interior of Jamar Restaurant, circa 1963.

Dimensions

To the nearest 1/4 inch (or nearest 1/8 inch on more accurate measurements, or nearest 1 mm on metric measurements), some dimensions on my rain lamp are:

Note the following sizes are identical:

These measurements may be useful for anyone buying parts, interchanging parts, manufacturing customized parts, or designing their own rain lamp from scratch. This is a relatively large commercial rain lamp, but not the largest. A common Creators, Inc. rain lamp that hangs on a chain is 32 inches tall, which is a few inches taller.

Photos





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Created: December 12, 2005
Updated: April 18, 2007