Plea to complete collection

A collector who has gathered more than 300 brass embossed lamp tags from Midland collieries is appealing for help to complete his collection.

Retired car worker Peter Wall, of Cherry Grove, Norton, Stourbridge, has been collecting the lamp checks for more than 25 years but a number from some of the mines have eluded him over the years.

Both the lamps and checks played a crucial role in the safety of miners.

Checks were brass discs with the name of the colliery and the miner's identification numbers.

Miners usually had two – one to hand in when they went into the mine and the other for the way out.

Mr Wall, aged 61, said he had been able to gather more than 300 for his personal collection from mines across the region – but has now hit a stumbling block.

He is desperately searching for lamp checks from the former Baggeridge Colliery and Shut End Collieries which were situated near to Kingswinford and closed down in 1953.

They were owned by H S Pitt and Company and Guy Pitt and Company which both later became part of the Lunt Comley and Pitt Group. Mr Wall is also looking for checks from the Ashmore Park Colliery, near Essington, which closed down in 1939 along with items from Holly Bank Colliery, Hilton Main Colliery and Old Coppice (Hawkins) Colliery.

He also needs items from Jubilee Colliery, Sandwell Park Colliery and Allen's Rough Colliery.

Mr Wall, a former Rover Group assembly worker, said: "I have been looking for these particular checks for a long time now. I know they exist because I have seen them in other collections but they have so far eluded me.

"Hopefully someone out there will either have one or know who might.

"It gets harder and harder to find these things every year because it is an industry that is dying away."

He started collecting at the time of the miners' strike of the mid-1980s.

Anyone who can help can contact Mr Wall at 5 Cherry Grove, Stourbridge, DY8 3YL.