There was tape on the inside of the globe that when we used citrasolve (goo gone) to remove, it also removed the color finish. So don't do that!
It was, as mentioned in other reviews, challenging but not impossible to screw the parts together. Maybe not the most precision threading. Thanks to comments, we used lubricant to help with that. But other than the challenges of assemblage, the two matching lamps we bought look great and do the job of shedding light in the fading Indian summer evenings.