The Grandaddy of flashlight bulbs

The Bulb Museum recently added this to it`s "exhibits" - an early carbon filament flashlight bulb, the predecessor to modern PR type lamps. This one isn`t the first but I`d guess it dates to the early to mid 1910s so still pretty old as flashlight bulbs go. Thought you`d all like to see how it all begain all that time ago:



It runs from about 2.5 - 3 volts so that would be a couple of those cutting-edge zinc carbon dry cells in all likeliness. Takes a fair old current and gets really hot, despite not being all that bright. The filament is carbonized cellulose and the pointed tip of the glass bulb is where the air was exhausted. Nowadays it`s done at the bottom inside the base, where it can`t get damaged. Note the base has no flange, but is otherwise the same size as a modern PR type. Not sure how it stayed in the socket, but there must have been a way!


The story goes, since these early bulbs were so inefficient and the expensive, early batteries having such a low capacity, they didn`t last all that long so users would flash the lights on briefly to see just enough to get by with. This is what led to the modern name Flashlight which we still refer to our portable illumination tools with.

A fascinating relic from the past!

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There's another bulb relic in the Bay Area (forgot exactly where, but it's in a firehouse) that has been chugging juice continuously since the turn of the 20th Century, and is still burning strong...
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Something like a 100 year bulb...

I'll bet someone's thinking on how to pull out the glass, filament and hog out the base so they can put in a Q3 /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif

That`s why I`m keeping this one stored safely in the Bulb Museum`s Vaults (boxes in the attic!) /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif

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Choua, I know that bulb well. It`s a little over a hundred years old and has spent almost all of that time glowing, save for when it was moved once. A 16 candlepower Edison base carbon filament lamp that was made by the Shelby Electric Co of Shelby Ohio, in about 1898. I have an identical one in my collection that also works, but mine hasn`t been lit for any significant length of time in something like 95 years in all probability.

http://centennialbulb.org - home of the world`s Longest Running Light bulb in the Livermore Fire Dept. They even have a live "bulb-cam" keeping a watch over it to make sure it doesn`t go out!

There have been many theories among the light bulb collecting community as to why it has lasted so very long, but the truth is, no-one really knows, and no-one probably ever will......


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Errr...check your link there buddy

I did.

I mistakenly posted it as a Com address initially instead of Org, but spotted that almost right away. You must`ve clicked it before I submitted the edited version. You`re too damn fast for me!

It should be OK now.

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I am only about 12 miles from Shelby, Ohio.

If that bulb ever burns out, it will make international news, for sure. Maybe even a State Funeral. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif