Laurel cast these lamps out of pot metal (usually zinc and tin). They often plated them with nickle or chrome and sprayed them with toned lacquer to get the desired finish.
You can't polish them or really clean them in any meaningful way, you'll just strip the lacquer and thin plating and go right to the base metal.
To restore these, you can strip them of all finishes and paint or powder coat. I have experimented with pretty much every other technique including things like cosmichrome, redoing the toned lacquer, actual replating etc. Nothing works.
However, powder coating comes out quite nice.
Thanks for the response, Retro.
My wife is pretty sold on painting or powdercoating the floor lamp white, so I tried experimenting on that one, as we hoped to keep the metallic finish on the table lamp. The milder options didn't do much, but Barkeeper's Friend and scrubbing slowly dissolved the yellowed clear coat, while leaving the finish intact. A few tiny flakes of finish came off the stem of the floor lamp and the bubbling on both apparently underlies the clear coat. It's not perfect, but a huge improvement. Will have to think about whether its still worth powdercoating the floor lamp.
Do you happen to know the dimensions for the original shade on the genie lamp?
Edit: I found an Etsy seller who listed 12" by 12" for the overall dimensions of the shade, but I'm not clear whether those dimensions are exact or approximate and the diameter of the top edge wasn't given. I've sent a message to inquire.
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