Age of light bulb?

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JacquieJet
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Age of light bulb?

Post by JacquieJet »

So months back I stumbled upon a huge score of antique lights. Someone was (sadly) gutting a large early 1900's house and remodelling to the studs. They were advertising locally all of their original interior doors, but I inquired about if they had any antique lights they wanted to sell, and they pretty much sold me everything they had. Gorgeous stuff! Slowly but surely I'm replacing my modern lighting here with those, and selling off the pieces I can't use.
Anyway, we rewired and installed one of the sconces that still had a light bulb in it, and it got me wondering how old this light bulb might be? It's
Obviously not original (not an "Edison" type), but it does look old and kind of neat. Any guesses? I've done some googling but come up empty handed.
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1917-ish
Happy 100th birthday, house!!

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Jamie
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Re: Age of light bulb?

Post by Jamie »

That style bulb was very popular in the 1970's. They went with the heavy dark pine and plaid furniture of the day not to mention the lamps of heavy metal with red shades. The flame bulbs of the 1930's and 1940's had matte colourings usually in a white, yellow, or pale orange...

1918ColonialRevival
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Re: Age of light bulb?

Post by 1918ColonialRevival »

The sconce itself dates to about the mid 1920s.

The deep amber textured glass bulbs like that are from the last 50 or so years. They can still be found at lighting suppliers today. I'm normally not a fan of them, but they actually look good in a Tudor-esque fixture like the one you have.

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JacquieJet
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Re: Age of light bulb?

Post by JacquieJet »

Thanks Jamie and Colonial! Very helpful!
I thought the amber light would be a bit much, but we put it in the kitchen which has several lights already, so it's just kind of an "extra" and the design it casts on the wall is pretty neat! The place we installed it used to have a cheap and modern white fold-out desk lamp... don't ask me why someone thought that was a good idea...

The house it came out of was built in 1908 (or so the owners believed per city records), although I'm sure along the years some fixtures were added/changed, as happens. I also have a set of four matching two bulb sconces from the same house that all still have similar bulbs to this one, only they are frosted instead of textured. I really want to use all four in the same room, but will have to wait until time (and our wallets!) permit more projects.
1917-ish
Happy 100th birthday, house!!

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