Thursday 20 March 2014

This little light of mine....

I'm gonna let it shine...

Yes, I 'm surrounded by vintage light bulbs which are actually lamps, because they are not all bulb shaped and anyway the boxes say lamps not bulbs! As I unpack a box of these goodies I am so amazed at how beautiful they are...
 

This is an old Westinghouse projection lamp.

On the black end of this it says "projection base down - 115v 1000 (wattage I assume?) Avg life 10 hours. From I what remember of my early days working in an office, a much shorter life if you don't switch the machine on and off at the right time... remember those yells of "don't switch it off!!"

These lamps come fully protected in a corrugated card but unfortunately no box. 



Inside the card were two different cautionary notes - dangerous business this projection stuff. 
I don't know exactly what age these lamps are but each one is quite a piece of art, which got my thinking and doing some research and I found all kinds of uses for old lamps some of which I have captured on a pinterest board



The jewellery items were of special interest to me especially as some of my bulbs are smaller and in multiple numbers, and these are in their original boxes.

Found this necklace for example is so cute! Some people are so creative!





Now there will be those of you who have spotted that the box of bulbs I have in stock must be from a Mazda car.... WRONG!! the word mazda was a trademark of General Electric (GE) from 1909 through to 1945 used for their incandescent light bulbs made in the USA.
And... what is even more interesting is that the word comes from Ahura Mazda whose name means light and wisdom.

One of my projection lamps was made by a company called "Stella" and has such a cool box but I can find little about this company.

Shame really as it by far the coolest lamp in the collection.

I even found a site for people who collect light bulbs, and not a Stella in sight!
http://bulbcollector.com/


The majority of my bulbs are smaller General Electric mazda lamps that didn't seem to have a specified purpose written on the boxes, small, perfectly formed, and here they look like they are glowing on their own - trick photography, or some would say bad photography!




So I had better get busy and put them into my online shop before it gets dark and I can't see what I am doing... ha ha!
Contact me if you are interested in buying any of these lovelies described or check out my online store VintageTreasure.

I have lots in stock for your craft project, collection or even to run your projector!




Oh and yes, a word about today...

there does seem to be a trend to enjoy the "beauty of the bulb" in new designs, a very talented local designer Paul Holstrom has some gorgeous pieces online and in his studio in Greytown.
Very cool!



So, one last thing... just how many vintage treasure dealers does it take to change a light bulb!

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