Yesterday I bought a Coleman lantern, and today I have to express disappointment.

Functioality-wise, it's great. But I cannot for the life of me fathom out how the design of the globe (glass) assembly ever made it out the prototype stage.

The globe is smaller in diameter than the metal base plate. On the base plate is a heat shield which is spring loaded so that it pushes the globe up against the ventilator cap. That's ok, but the globe diameter is smaller than the heatshield too, such that the heatshield doesn't keep the globe concentric on the lantern.

That is mediocre design, but shouldn't in itself be a problem - you'd visually center the globe and then tighten the ventilator down so that the spring action keeps the globe in position.

This is where it gets really wacky though. The globe diameter is such that the top of the globe rests against a non-flat part of the ventilator. If you think of the ventilator as an upside-down bowl with a wide convex lip, the globe is resting against the convex part, making it pretty much impossible to keep the glass concentrically in position.

I'm all in favor of rustic looking lanterns. but prefer that it is a result of years of abuse tempered by periodic maintenance. Not straight out of the box. These are elementary mechanical design flaws.

Just to complete the picture, the top of the ventilator cap isn't flat either. It has a raised 'bump' section, and guess what? The bump diameter is smaller than the top of the generator assembly that it rests against, meaning that once again, it is virtually impossible to get the thing to sit concentrically. It also has the nice side effect of minimising the friction between the cap and the generator assembly so that, even when you tighten the cap nut as much as possible it is easy to twist the cap in relation to the rest of the lamp. And twisting the cap anticlockwise will loosen the nut.

Since the handle is attached to the ventilator cap, that means the weight of the hot lantern containing pressurized volatile flammable liquid is being hung from the cap, and hence relying on this nut to stay tight.

Now I could understand if these design flaws were present in a lantern made by AnewGuy Lantern Company LLC. It would still piss me off, but I could accept that a new companys designs might have teething issues, or that they couldn't revise such issues out of the production run easily due to financial resources. But this is Coleman. Their 103 year history started with a lantern. Their early financial success was due to lanterns. Their name is known globally because of their stoves and lanterns.
I cannot believe that these _elementary_ design flaws were present in the lanterns that made Coleman a household name. How does a company 'forget' how to make one of its flagship products?
I trusted their name and history, picked out the model with the features that I wanted and paid my money. I guess I'm going to return it. It's the 288 twin mantle for anyone interested.

Are all their current models like this? Or can anyone recommend a model without these flaws? (Or another manufacturer ?)