Posted By: Bill H
Posted Date: Apr 24, 2011 (02:40 AM)
I have a similar apparatus but made with decorated wooden sides which I bought circa the early 1990's in a Mekong marketplace at Nongkhai, Thailand. It was sold to me as a made in Vietnam opium lamp, but like yours has an attached needle of the type used to dab opium onto the business end of a pipe. There's no reason to think it is any older than the day I bought it. It is about eight inches tall.
My lamp lacks the iron attachment of yours, which looks in your pictures like it might be a handle for toting the lamp around. I would guess that yours might have been made in Vietnam or elsewhere in Southeast Asia as well. Reproduction but often functional opium-smoking paraphernalia is widely sold at tourist stops along the border of North and Northeastern Thailand. A goodly amount of such handicrafts sold on the Thai side of the Mekong in recent years have come from Laos and Vietnam.
Best regards,
Bill H.
