It's about time I finally post on the forum! Now I would like to explain how to tell the differences between a vintage and a modern light bulb. This is only for American and Canadian lighting products because I know these products the most since I am an American.

-Incandescent A-line light bulbs manufactured before 1980 typically had supported filaments. Sylvania light bulbs manufactured in the late 1960s and the 1970s only had a filament support, no side supports for the lead wires. GE and Westinghouse light bulbs had this design from the day they began using coiled coil filaments in 1933. GE developed the simplifed mount (a filament without an additional support) sometime during the 1970s, but Westinghouse was the first manufacturer to manufacture large volumes of 75, 100, 300, and 500 watt light bulbs with unsupported CC-8 filaments. Westinghouse A-line lamps had a mix of supported and unsupported filaments, depending on production line and batch, until around 1979-1980. GE and Sylvania A-line light bulbs always had supported filaments through 1979 and went to unsupported filaments around 1980. Filament supports were not the only factor in dividing vintage from modern light bulbs. Vintage light bulbs also had older base molding designs, acid etched inside frosted glass, older packaging styles, and in the case of GE soft whites, the Q-coat finish. GE invented the Q-coat finish in 1949, by simply coating an inside frosted bulb with a thin coating of silica. Westinghouse and Sylvania made similar inside white light bulbs during the 1950s, but were phased out in favor of thick silica coats by 1960. Westinghouse did manufacture minimum batches of soft whites similar to Q-coat until the mid 1980s though. During the 1980s inside frosted bulbs gave way to light silica coatings to cut manufacturing costs and reduce acid waste. Westinghouse then Philips was the last to manufacture inside frosted light bulbs in 1998.

-Fluorescent tubes manufactured before the 1980s had different phosphor material. Cool whites had more of a crisp white color, opposed to the pasty pinkish color of later cool whites. Some lamp collectors dislike the newer cool white color because of the pinkish and harsh appearance. I believe the newer phosphor has some rare earth material added to improve efficency, but I am not entirely convinced. Also older fluorescent lamps had older looking etches, in some cases etched inside the fluorescent tube that cant be rubbed off from the outside. Westinghouse fluorescent tubes had black end caps until the mid 1980s. Older fluorescents also had full doses of mercury which allows them to last nearly forever where they are only used part of the time (such as classrooms which are not used during the summers, etc). The feel you get by looking at the older fluorescent tubes is quite different from the current low mercury junk being manufactured today.

-Vintage HID lamps are quite different from those manufactured today. Mercury vapor lamps were typically manufactured in the BT shape (except GE and Norelco). They were well built and super reliable. You can get years of trouble free service from these lamps. Even HPS lamps were made much better. They had a true golden white color rather than the less appealing pinkish color associated with current junk. The secret to this better color and longer life is the external amalgam reservior. GE used to show off this feature on its HPS packages in the 1980s to advertise longer life, etc. I remember HPS lamps easily lasting 5-10 years. Current lamps fail in 6 months to 3 years. How to tell if a HPS lamp has an external amalgam reservior: When fired up it will glow blue, nearly like a clear mercury lamp. It'll take 5 minutes to warm to full brightness, and the color will have gradually shifted to golden white. Current HPS lamps glow orange/purple when firing up, and warms in 2 minutes. It's too bad the cheap minded society in the USA wants to buy junk so lamp manufactuers had to find ways to cut costs, and in return you get junk. Many utilities have policies regarding lamp life: If a lamp lasts at least 1 year, thats good service. To me it's a total waste of labor and spent lamps. Not to mention environmental harm from all the spent lamps!

Nice guide, Dave.  I agree, ALTO = Crap.

A few comments & questions:

(1) Aren't inside frosted incandescents still made? GE "Standard" lamps used to be inside frosted from what I remember. I'm sure there are some off-brand "industrial" lamps that are still inside frost vs. "soft-white".

Thanks for the info on the silica coating and the filament supports - I didn't know about the technicalities. Is the lack of filament supports in modern household incandescents why they blow out so easily and quickly? Usually dead incandescents I see have no filament left (it rattles around inside the bulb) vs just a "break" in the filament.

(2) Different brands of "cool white" F40T12/CW lamps did seem to appear more or less pinkish or yellowish. I know the CWX deluxe lamps were particularly pinkish, and they match poorly with regular CW's or 4100K triphosphor, but have excellent color rendering, actually better than a Spec-41. Some of the cheap low-wattage cool whites that are still made w/o triphoshor coatings have the worst color rendering I've ever seen in a fluorescent - and are usually used in bathrooms too ! - they make people look like zombies.

(3) Doesn't GE still make HPS lamps using an external amalgam reservoir? I have a 1 yr old 50w medium base Lucalox that looks like it has the reservoir. It glows white at start up, then quickly pink, yellow and finally its final color. It doesn't look any different than any other HPS lamp. Many HPS lamps (all brands, even Philips Altos), when they are getting old, will glow mercury blue at start up and take a longer time to warm up.

I most certainly agree that lamps from the U.S. "big three" (Sylvania, General Electric and Philips) aren't lasting as long or are built with the quality they used to be. It is a shame. More people are using low-energy lamps that contain mercury, yet still throw them in the trash. Even with low-mercury lamps, this is more hazardous to the environment (and the pocketbook) than using an incandescent lamp. Why bother to use fluorescents if they only last 1000 hours? Not to mention you're usually paying a lot more.

Maybe that's why most of us on this forum love old lamps. The quality really shows. Over the years I've mostly bought GE lamps and except for one bad package of incandescents and a few breakages, EVERY lamp has met (and most have exceeded, some by a long way) its rated life. I'm worried their new lamps won't live up to that reputation.

Nope, no American made 750-1000 hour in the 40-200 watt range are acid etched anymore. The closest to the above are the new fake Westinghouse bulbs. Their IF bulbs are acid etched and have similar life hour ratings, BUT they are made in China. Sylvania has the largest percentage of acid etched bulbs still manufactured today. Their 25 watt shorties and all rough service lamps are such examples. Also long life offbrands such as Hytron and Aero-Tech still makes IF bulbs.

Yeah fluorescent colors can vary from manufacturer to manufacturer. However, have you compared an inside etched GE Mainlighter from the 1970s to one made in the 1980s or later? I have. Theres quite a color difference. My 1975 GE F40CW Mainlighter makes a clean bright white color. Later GEs look pinkish and pasty. The same can be said for 1970s and earlier Sylvania and Westinghouse (later Philips) fluorescents when compared to their later counterparts.

You're correct the GE Lucalox lamps still have external amalgam reserviors. But they don't seem as well made. Maybe they have much less sodium stored in the reserviors? The current GE lamps I see in use produce a funny pinkish color.

Its good to know there are others who agree on old vs new products, quality-wise. Yesterday I rescued 4 Westinghouse 40 watt cool whites from a sunday school building behind a church. That sunday school building is a manufactured building that was built in 1977. Almost all of the fixtures still have the orginial Westinghouse fluorescent lamps! I installed 4 new Sylvania fluorescent lamps (they are new lamps from the 1990s, just before they started making low merc junk) in place of the Westies. I told the guy who was responsible for the lights why the Westies lasted so long. Two reasons. The lights are turned on only on Sundays, and they have much larger doses of mercury. The ends on the tubes have very little blackening. I told him about the green end capped fluorescent tubes being totally bogus, that they would release more mercury into the environment, etc. He was totally surprised and appalled! He certainly agreed with me. Two of the Westies are now in my preheat industrial unit. They start so much better than the low merc junk!

I am an expert on quality of the modern lamps as well. I work on the lights a lot at my job. I found the GE (only those made outside China) and Philips incandescents are the best in that class. For the little PL fluorescents Philips makes the best by far. For the linear fluorescents, well for the pre-low mercury type, the best goes to Sylvania. The GE Starcoat T-8s are also very good, but frequent switching will kill them fast. The early Philips T-8s from the early-mid 1990s were excellent, then quality went way down afterwards. For the T-12 fluorescents, I think Sylvanias are also the best with GE being a close second. Nothing is as good as the old stuff tho. Strange, but I see more of the 1970s and early 1980s fluorescent lamps in use than those made in the late 1980s and the 1990s!

Ok I actually forgot to mention the HID lamps. I have had less experience with HID lamps at work, so I can only say what I actually know. This morning I replaced a 50 watt ED-17 HPS lamp in a wallpack fixture at the civic auditorium. The old lamp was made by Philips in October 1998. It probably was installed much later because we had such lamps sitting on the shelf in the shop for a while. That lamp didn't impress me much. I installed an NOS Philips HPS lamp that was manufactured in December 1987. It seemed somewhat better made than the 1998 lamp. It even has a nickel plated base. It'll be interesting to see how long this lamp will last ;-) I don't think anyone except the European manufacturers and Iwasaki makes good HPS lamps. For mercury and MH, GE makes the best in my opinion. I had good experience with GE MH lamps. Sylvania and Philips MH  lamps have problems with aymmetrical arc tube blackening as they age (one side is blackened more than the other causing an uneven spherical light distribution). The GE mercury lamps from Hungary are no Bonusline nor Lifeguard in quality, but are still pretty good. I notice they stay brighter much longer than the Sylvania and Philips lamps. Philips 50-175 watt mercury lamps are pretty well made, but their 400 watt lamps have been problematic from what I have heard. Sylvania's mercs from China are junk. Hope this helps! However nothing matches the peformance of the older merc and HPS lamps.

So far I have been most impressed by the Iwasaki/EYE mercury lamps. I haven't tried Iwasaki HPS lamps but if I can find one I will. I think GE has been making great HID lamps but I'm not sure if their current quality is quite what it once was. At Lowe's I looked thru a whole batch of Sylvania 35w HPS lamps and all but two had misaligned arc tubes, one at almost a 45 degree angle within the outer bulb! I have a Venture 50w MH lamp and the arc tube is already dark at around 1000 hours. My 70w GE is better but for some reason it takes a long time to ignite - always has.  I have a 50w Philips merc that's going strong with no blackening after 7 years; the Hungarian GE that preceded it lasted about 5 years. Newer Philips and Sylvania 175w mercs seem to have a problem with loose arc tube frames - they rattle - but Feit mercs are well made and don't rattle, if you don't mind them not having a true phosphor coating. And the no-name Chinese and Mexican made stuff that comes with yard lights at the home improvement store - no good, usually dies within a few years or less.

  Wow! I found this place by accident, and feel like I've got some catching up to do! I realize there aren't alot of "us", and always kinda wondered where others that like this stuff hang out. Now I know! Hope you guys check in regularly! Anyway, a little background, which due to my advanced age (49!)and career path has always revolved around lighting of some sort. In the 80's, I worked for Pennsylvania Power & Light, the northeast area's power provider, and spent alot of time repairing and prepping streetlighting, and was fortunate to be able to procure lots of old catalogs and data. And vintage and newer lamps and fixtures. (around 25 old fixtures, the start of my collection.) Next was maintenance at a major hospital, where I was in charge of all lighting, retrofitting, design and purchasing. Now, I work in the area's biggest electrical supply house, and have my hand in, you guessed it, lighting. So I can't complain about the way things went I guess.
  I too agree with the current versus vintage state of affairs. My direct experience is that regarding linear fluorescent, GE was fabulous in the 70s and 80s. At the hospital, we had done group relamping in 1988 using what I'll call "first generation" WattMisers, 34 watt T12s with the red print on the ends, and had pulled the last 4 out of service, still working, in March of 2007! Not bad. At PP&L, we were using Westinghouse Lifeguard 100 and 175w Mercs, and when we retired all the old GE M250s and LMI Cobraheads and went HPS in 1986, I saved a ton of the lamps that were date coded as far back as 1969-1970. Again, not bad! I've heard of mercs locally that have been in service up to 30 years. Nowadays, I see failures either right out of the box, within days, weeks or months. Very discouraging. Anyway, enough rambling for now. Just wanted to say hi, and get started!

  Wow! I found this place by accident, and feel like I've got some catching up to do! I realize there aren't alot of "us", and always kinda wondered where others that like this stuff hang out. Now I know! Hope you guys check in regularly! Anyway, a little background, which due to my advanced age (49!)and career path has always revolved around lighting of some sort. In the 80's, I worked for Pennsylvania Power & Light, the northeast area's power provider, and spent alot of time repairing and prepping streetlighting, and was fortunate to be able to procure lots of old catalogs and data. And vintage and newer lamps and fixtures. (around 25 old fixtures, the start of my collection.) Next was maintenance at a major hospital, where I was in charge of all lighting, retrofitting, design and purchasing. Now, I work in the area's biggest electrical supply house, and have my hand in, you guessed it, lighting. So I can't complain about the way things went I guess.
  I too agree with the current versus vintage state of affairs. My direct experience is that regarding linear fluorescent, GE was fabulous in the 70s and 80s. At the hospital, we had done group relamping in 1988 using what I'll call "first generation" WattMisers, 34 watt T12s with the red print on the ends, and had pulled the last 4 out of service, still working, in March of 2007! Not bad. At PP&L, we were using Westinghouse Lifeguard 100 and 175w Mercs, and when we retired all the old GE M250s and LMI Cobraheads and went HPS in 1986, I saved a ton of the lamps that were date coded as far back as 1969-1970. Again, not bad! I've heard of mercs locally that have been in service up to 30 years. Nowadays, I see failures either right out of the box, within days, weeks or months. Very discouraging. Anyway, enough rambling for now. Just wanted to say hi, and get started!

Lighting-Gallery.net is one of the coolest page to be at! I joined this site before I became an administrator, I met someone who works in Baltimore Gas and Electric and we have been meeting often, best thing to happen to me! I live in Maryland where BGE resides.

Actually Tudor, as time allows, I'll post some photos and then start to renew my passion for this stuff, which will include trying to locate a few specific fixtures and lamps for my collection. Time is always my enemy, since I work full time, have a wife who works and goes to school full time, a stepson and a daughter, and I play in two bands. But, I'm kinda excited about this too, so we'll see. I'll throw my first desire out there: even though I have a beautiful '66 GE M250R, light grey paint, 175w Merc, I really want a M250 in natural aluminum, which predated the grey. I may just post a want ad in that forum. Thanks for responding too!

Actually Tudor, as time allows, I'll post some photos and then start to renew my passion for this stuff, which will include trying to locate a few specific fixtures and lamps for my collection. Time is always my enemy, since I work full time, have a wife who works and goes to school full time, a stepson and a daughter, and I play in two bands. But, I'm kinda excited about this too, so we'll see. I'll throw my first desire out there: even though I have a beautiful '66 GE M250R, light grey paint, 175w Merc, I really want a M250 in natural aluminum, which predated the grey. I may just post a want ad in that forum. Thanks for responding too!

I have an April 1970 GE M-250 (the very last year and month for the fixture to have a "press to open" latch, after that they had the bailwire latch (which i call GE M-250R or as knwon as GE M-250R1) mine doesn't have original ballast see here

I know someone who is offering a GE M-250 in silver.......but its 240 volts......maybe you will be interested?

Hmm...240 eh? I'd prefer 110v, but do you know what the asking price is? And the wattage?

Hmm...240 eh? I'd prefer 110v, but do you know what the asking price is? And the wattage?

for this guy, any 240 volt streetlight is free, just asking for shipping ;-)
see [url-http://www.lighting-gallery.net/index.php?topic=268.0] here I know he has some silver GE M-250s [/url] I think the older ones without the thumb latch that makes easier to open, so they are simply just buttons itself!!!!

 

Actually the first generation GE Watt-Misers were rated at 35w. In the early 80s they were rerated at 34w. But the classic red etch lasted until '88. They are now hard to find, I kinda miss them these days. The Westinghouse Econ-o-watt fluorescents were great too, they lasted almost 10 years or so. I have a well used but still working Westinghouse Econ-o-watt 34w warm white lamp preserved in my collection, it dates to around '82. Anyway welcome to L-G, I love discussing about old lights as well!

  Wow! I found this place by accident, and feel like I've got some catching up to do! I realize there aren't alot of "us", and always kinda wondered where others that like this stuff hang out. Now I know! Hope you guys check in regularly! Anyway, a little background, which due to my advanced age (49!)and career path has always revolved around lighting of some sort. In the 80's, I worked for Pennsylvania Power & Light, the northeast area's power provider, and spent alot of time repairing and prepping streetlighting, and was fortunate to be able to procure lots of old catalogs and data. And vintage and newer lamps and fixtures. (around 25 old fixtures, the start of my collection.) Next was maintenance at a major hospital, where I was in charge of all lighting, retrofitting, design and purchasing. Now, I work in the area's biggest electrical supply house, and have my hand in, you guessed it, lighting. So I can't complain about the way things went I guess.
  I too agree with the current versus vintage state of affairs. My direct experience is that regarding linear fluorescent, GE was fabulous in the 70s and 80s. At the hospital, we had done group relamping in 1988 using what I'll call "first generation" WattMisers, 34 watt T12s with the red print on the ends, and had pulled the last 4 out of service, still working, in March of 2007! Not bad. At PP&L, we were using Westinghouse Lifeguard 100 and 175w Mercs, and when we retired all the old GE M250s and LMI Cobraheads and went HPS in 1986, I saved a ton of the lamps that were date coded as far back as 1969-1970. Again, not bad! I've heard of mercs locally that have been in service up to 30 years. Nowadays, I see failures either right out of the box, within days, weeks or months. Very discouraging. Anyway, enough rambling for now. Just wanted to say hi, and get started!

Oops! Forgot about the 35's! We were using Econowatts actually when I started. On my first relamping projects we went right with what must have been the new 34w Misers. That red print WAS sharp though! Speaking of Econowatts, we were still pulling out old ones from nooks and crannies, with the black end caps, so I assume they were late 70's early 80's too. Ahh, the good old days....