I have a F40T12 CW Black ender, obviously made by Westinghouse and re-labeled for this company- Commercial Lighting Products, Inc.  I found it in a church fixture, and it was the only one in there. I'm guessing late 70s/early 80s vintage.  No blacking at the ends, fires up just fine.  I think she still has a lot of life left in her. 


I have 3 or 4 of these.  All have extensive life on them, also took them out of a church building but they still work.  Dark on both ends but not the complete end of life darkness yet.  F40T12 Warm White, and based upon the end caps, I am guessing made by Sylvania and re-labeled for resale by someone else.  I have one or two that look like they could have been made by GE as well with their style of end caps.  Vintage is likely the mid to late 80s. 


Another one I pulled out of a church building, F40T12CW.  Only working Norelco Fluorescent bulb I've come across so far. I'm guessing late 70s/early 80s vintage, and looks almost as though it were made by GE and re-branded for Norelco, but I am not certain on that.  Still works, but she is definitely reaching the end of her life.  Her twins that were in that same building had burned out.   



This could very well be the oldest I have.  A Sylvania Lifeline F40WWX that I took from a shack up in the mountains (10,800 ft above sea level) Likely 60s/70s vintage.  She still fires up after spending all her life in a cold climate.  All the other bulbs in that shack which were mostly Westinghouse and a few other Lifelines were dead and when I tried to test, the end caps had corroded enough that they snapped off. 



This one is my favorite.  I have 4 or 5 of these, 3 of which are still in new condition I believe.  They all work.  F40T12 CWs Sylvania Thriftmates.  Early 80s vintage. 





That's it for the tubes right now, I'll post some of the old bulbs I have and work on later.

Cheers,

Ryan
Denver, Colorado

Cool tubes. Definitey long life guaranteed, i seen those last for tens of years in places where they are switched on every day

What is this ThriftMate thing ? Energy saver ?

Wow!  What is that "Thrift Mate"?  I have never seen anything like it!  Does it make a 4 foot fixture take a 3 foot tube?  Will it work on preheat/switchstart?
That Norelco looks like early Philips, just after the blackender era.  I have some with end caps like that. The date code on the "Guaranteed Special Long Life" tube looks to be Philips.

I have a CLP lamp that's a 24 inch T8 15 watter...... and it keeps on going. Actually I have it retired for now mode.

Powell

I seen the Sylvanina Thrift Mate before in the early 90s in a locale high school they were all warm white.

Sylvania had a line of fluorescents that they started in the early 80s and made it for a few years called the Thriftmate.  It is the standard size, just has the plastic over one of the ends and supposedly was able to use less energy but provide close to 40 watts of light when needed or would dim down a bit, but that is just what I heard.  I remember seeing them used in my elementary school as well as the Gym I used to go to with my father. 

I have some late 80s vintage F40T12 tubes from Philips that have on them "Westinghouse Lamps" So that must have been during the phase where Philips was working on getting their own production line running right after purchasing Westinghouse Lighting. 

The new Westinghouse lighting has peaked my interest some and I've already purchased standard bulbs and CFLs from them, and will be trying their fluorescent line out.  Just wish they would go back to the black caps  

The 'guaranteed special long life' lamp without the CLP logo was made by Philips at their Bath, NY factory in March of 1987 (the date code and factory symbol are dead giveaways).

The plastic part on the 'thrift mate' lamp contains a current limiting capacitor wired in parallel with an electrode isolation transformer.  The idea behind this was that the capacitor would limit the lamp circuit current in a 2 lamp rapid start ballast (each ballast would run one normal lamp and one 'thrift mate' lamp).  The isolation transformer would supply the electrode heating current for the lamp from the ballast.

At the radio station I work for, we had some Norelco branded F96T12 lamps in the late 1960's or maybe early 1970's that had that logo. They made end bands and life was not particularly good. Their logo was this one.

Thanks for the info.  Would it be safe to say that the "Guaranteed" label was used only on bulbs made by Philips/Westinghouse, at least from the 80s and 90s?