Found 6 of these in bulkhead type fittings on the Preheat F40T12 retrofit job I just completed. These are a preheat magnetic CFL made by GE, color is between warm white and cool white (about 3500K). Anybody know how old these might be? "Compax FL815/TL Made in Japan" I cant seem to find anything that resembles a date code. Also, very non-precise made tube like todays CFLs, lots of uneven bumps and it almost looks like it was hand blown. All 6 show very little signs of end blackening so possibly low hours

I would guess it is from the early 1990s. I have some from 1988, and they look a little bit different. Here are mine.

Interesting, never seen a globeless version of these.

It looks to me like the cover was broken off of this one.

Hmm interesting detroitTwostroke, your lamp has vents on the base and a plastic diffuser, now that I look at the lamps ive got im fairly certain they used to have the diffuser as well. I wonder why someone would remove them to expose the tube? All 6 look identical. One flickers badly and theres a faint purple/blue glow around one electrode when its running

I have a few of these. They are supposed to have a glass bullet or globe shaped cover. Some of mine are missing the cover just like yours.