Up until recently, about 95% of my lamp collecting has been done in a combination of Abandoned Buildings, Junkyards, Dumpsters and previous Employers. I Intend on continuing those forms of collection as they have served me with some awesome lamps that I wouldn't have had otherwise. Not only that but I'm saving them from the undeniable fate of destruction. BUT recently the internet buying bug has bit me.... and I've ordered a few things that I will post when they arrive (I'm sure you guys will like these) One of them, the 1000W 40's era GE photo flood lamp (pictured below) I managed to find for 12 dollars. But I'd like to know ways to more efficiently search for lamps in the internet realm.... I'd consider myself very good at finding them in real life scavenging scenarios but that's because my eyes are trained for seeing bulbs much like a birds eyes are to see bugs lol... in the internet world there is so much bloat with listings showing new vintage look alikes, LED bulbs  and even unrelated results that have nothing to do with what you're searching for... I've seen shoes pop up in my search results  

I've seen shoes pop up in my search results  

I've had that, too. Nike makes a line of shoes by the name Mercurial. I eliminated the shoes from my searches by typing "mercury vapour -mercurial" exactly like that. Most search engines will then search for mercury vapour but not for items that contain the word mercurial. It works in Google and eBay search engines, and it should work for most others.

The most annoying I find in trying to find something online is eBay searches that will list a lamp with the title along the lines of "Mercury vapour metal halide high pressure sodium lamp" (just one lamp is in the listing, though). The description reads something like "I don't know much about this lamp but it looks OK." Then the picture shows a metal halide lamp with a jet black arc tube. Obviously the seller doesn't know enough about them to be selling them, but it is what it is.

The other annoying thing is when you're searching for lamps in Google images. You then get some "garbage web sites" (that is my term for them) where they list all kinds of random images they found online, with a few sentences describing each. Those websites won't get you anywhere.

That said, I wish you all the best in augmenting your collection !

I've had that, too. Nike makes a line of shoes by the name Mercurial. I eliminated the shoes from my searches by typing "mercury vapour -mercurial" exactly like that. Most search engines will then search for mercury vapour but not for items that contain the word mercurial. It works in Google and eBay search engines, and it should work for most others.

The most annoying I find in trying to find something online is eBay searches that will list a lamp with the title along the lines of "Mercury vapour metal halide high pressure sodium lamp" (just one lamp is in the listing, though). The description reads something like "I don't know much about this lamp but it looks OK." Then the picture shows a metal halide lamp with a jet black arc tube. Obviously the seller doesn't know enough about them to be selling them, but it is what it is.

The other annoying thing is when you're searching for lamps in Google images. You then get some "garbage web sites" (that is my term for them) where they list all kinds of random images they found online, with a few sentences describing each. Those websites won't get you anywhere.

That said, I wish you all the best in augmenting your collection !

I have had those websites as well. I don't understand the point, to those websites, and I thought they must be viruses or something. Some of the wording on them doesn't' even make sense, as if it was poorly translated.

One annoying thing on eBay, is sometimes in the search listings, the item say Free Shipping, but when you go to it, there's a price on the shipping. Along with sellers of items that only cost a few dollars, but use the Expedited Shipping and the cost is about 3 time what the item itself is worth.

Searching the web for vintage lighting is a mixed bag here in Sweden.
Online you can find a wealth of vintage fixtures, but you rarely find any vintage bulbs at all. The vintage bulbs you find are mostly incandescents like Philips Photolita and Opalux but pretty much never any HID lamps.

At yardsales and flea markets i have had good luck finding HID bulbs, mostly MV as those kinds of fixtures are quite common still.

Another tip is trash bins outside of electrical contractors specializing in lighting, there you can finds lots of reactors and other gear.

Ugh I really hate those Nike "Mercurial Vapor" shoes. It makes searching for mercury vapor stuff harder as a whole, not just on eBay.
Also, I like to search by specific manufacturers like "Stonco" or "American Electric Lighting". I have found some good stuff this way.

I didn't know you could put a "-" in front of a word to sift through search results... Could you stack multiple on top of one another? Like for example:

" Mercury Vapor -Mercurial -Shoe -LED"

Would this work?

Searching the web for vintage lighting is a mixed bag here in Sweden.
Online you can find a wealth of vintage fixtures, but you rarely find any vintage bulbs at all. The vintage bulbs you find are mostly incandescents like Philips Photolita and Opalux but pretty much never any HID lamps.

At yardsales and flea markets i have had good luck finding HID bulbs, mostly MV as those kinds of fixtures are quite common still.

Another tip is trash bins outside of electrical contractors specializing in lighting, there you can finds lots of reactors and other gear.

Flea markets and yard sales are awesome!


Can you order bulbs from over seas? Like perhaps using the US eBay and just having them shipped to you?

Can you order bulbs from over seas? Like perhaps using the US eBay and just having them shipped to you?

I would not bother importing lamps, the shipping is insane (like 30-40$ minimum, if theyll even ship to Sweden) and i dont want to risk the bulbs being destroyed due to people not packing properly.