Looks like an old hurricane lamp that someone transformed into an incandescent lamp. Would look better with a bigger bulb or perhaps one of the flicker type bulbs that look like candle flames. Hope you had a great Christmas Bob!
I suspect it's a DIY conversion - the crude base - of an old gas lamp... the brass piece -- I assume it is solid -- would be high up on a kerosene/oil lamp, above the reservoir making it top heavy, and liable to overturning, a major no-no. (My family had kerosene lamps at our summer place in Maine up to the late 50s. The possibility that one of the kids would overturn one by accident was a source of great and constant anxiety to my Mum and Grandmother.) I have no direct experience with gas lamps and assumed that they were always mounted overhead or from the wall. Some Googling shows otherwise: Bare gas lamp burner: Table top gas lamp: Another... looks PhotoShopped, who puts a lamp on the floor? Seeing the flame above the globe, I have to wonder if it is properly tuned/trimmed/set.
I had a propane lantern when I lived in rural N.D. for power outages. It worked nicely. But I needed to keep a supply of gas mantles for it, because after using one, it would disintegrate before the next power outage.
> TAKE LAMP OK. > XYZZY It is now pitch dark. If you proceed you will likely fall into a pit. > LIGHT LAMP Your lamp is now on. You are in a debris room filled with stuff washed in from the surface. A low wide passage with cobbles becomes plugged with mud and debris here, but an awkward canyon leads upward and west. A note on the wall says: Magic Word "XYZZY" A three foot black rod with a rusty star on an end lies nearby.
You are right about the base being heavy as all get out Bra... close to 30 pounds... the glass is about 7/16ths thick and near as I can tell - of optical quality properties... there is a small round "UL" sticker on the felt under the base... and a nicely machined switch/button in the rear where the power cord runs under that and then inside through what looks like a bakelight grommet...... It certainly appears to me to be at least imitating the gas-light in looks at the nozzle end, if it isn't a direct conversion... I didn't find anything resembling a fuel-flow switch, but that may have been attached to where the electrical switch is now...
