flashlight museum gone?

snakebite

Flashlight Enthusiast
Joined
Mar 17, 2001
Messages
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dayton oh
tried to look up a light and got redirected to some lightbulb dealer.
and no malware here.
 

Lynx_Arc

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Oct 1, 2004
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Tulsa,OK
I got no redirect here but then I have FF set to stop redirects. Most likely the site was losing money as it has been over a decade of LED lights and most people have probably abandoned their old incans or they sit in the dust.
 

bykfixer

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Aug 9, 2015
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Dust in the Wind
I got "site not found" so yeah I suppose they stopped paying for the web address. If they stop paying whomever they "rent" the address from then it goes blank until someone else registers that address and pays an annual fee. It's usually not very expensive depending on who owns it. Say you want an address called "CaptainKirk" then the owner of that may bust you wide open knowing it's pretty popular. But if it's called "sunshine on my shoulders" it's probably not expensive at all. But the folks who ran flashlight museum may not have wanted to deal with the hassle of keeping it up anymore.
 

ZMZ67

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Joined
Jun 4, 2007
Messages
1,901
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Colorado
The site you were redirected to,Lightbulbs.com is owned by the McLellan family. I believe Dave McLellan who has now retired was the driving force behind flashlight museum so perhaps he no longer wants to maintain the flashlight museum site. There is a mention of the flashlight museum in the history section at the bottom of the page on Lightbulbs.com but I didn't see any mention of the website status.
 

turbodog

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Joined
Jun 23, 2003
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central time
The site you were redirected to,Lightbulbs.com is owned by the McLellan family. I believe Dave McLellan who has now retired was the driving force behind flashlight museum so perhaps he no longer wants to maintain the flashlight museum site. There is a mention of the flashlight museum in the history section at the bottom of the page on Lightbulbs.com but I didn't see any mention of the website status.

Thought that was some Craig dude??? Did not leave here on good terms...
 

Monocrom

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Aug 27, 2006
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NYC
It's too bad. There used to be a wealth of information at that site. But such is the case with e-sites. "Preserved for the Ages" is something now gone out of fashion it seems.
 

Kestrel

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Joined
Oct 31, 2007
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7,355
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Willamette Valley, OR
[...] But such is the case with e-sites. "Preserved for the Ages" is something now gone out of fashion it seems.
Actually, it never was. :)

There is an interesting story on a classical music composer (can't recall his name - which is one of the lessons to take away I guess :ironic:).
He was modestly successful in his day (early romantic era IIRC), so that a wealthy patron created a library to house all of his work.
Yep - the library eventually burns down and virtually every composition was destroyed; so few of his works survived that he is almost unknown in the present day.

The moral to the story is that if you want to preserve information, throw it to the four winds; if it is centralized and preserved, an inevitable cataclysm will wipe it out completely. :(
CPF is possibly the single greatest depository of historical flashlight information - precisely because the knowledge is decentralized & distributed across its membership. :)
 
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Monocrom

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Joined
Aug 27, 2006
Messages
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NYC
Actually, it never was. :)

There is an interesting story on a classical music composer (can't recall his name - which is one of the lessons to take away I guess :ironic:).
He was modestly successful in his day (early romantic era IIRC), so that a wealthy patron created a library to house all of his work.
Yep - the library eventually burns down and virtually every composition was destroyed; so few of his works survived that he is almost unknown in the present day.

The moral to the story is that if you want to preserve information, throw it to the four winds; if it is centralized and preserved, an inevitable cataclysm will wipe it out completely. :(
CPF is possibly the single greatest depository of historical flashlight information - precisely because the knowledge is decentralized & distributed across its membership. :)


You have an excellent point.
Another good solution is to set up multiple libraries to preserve multiple copies of that wealth of knowledge. I agree that one central depository can be destroyed by fire or flood.
 

bykfixer

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Joined
Aug 9, 2015
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Dust in the Wind
When I started studying vintage flashlights the flashlight museum was a good starting point. They chronicled lots of products by lots of little known manufacturers. Not much info is out there in one place. The book Flashlights by Bill Utely is probably the best source for Eveready products since the day a guy named David Missel showed his new battery operated candle for a bicycle to a guy named Conrad Hubert who said something like "I'll give you $100 for the know how". Eventually that led to what we now know as the flashlight. Two fellows named David White (gotalight dot net) and Steve Gitterman are also encyclopedias of early flashlights. David's site is still up. Between the two are vast collections of electric candles, cigarette lighters and flashlights.

The wonderful thing about the flashlight museum was it showed that the flood of new products to market did not begin with all of those Asian made LED numbers but began way back in the early 1900's. There are literally brands from A to Z out there, many of which most would never know existed. In the 1920's the flashlight was hugely popular but in the 30's most companies folded. After WW2 things flourished again and by the 1960's nearly every home on the planet had one. Many of those unheard of brands were chronicled at flashlight museum. It's all probably stored at a server somewhere, it's just a matter of obtaining access to it I supppose.

Often a particular brand there had a heading that told the basic history of the company. In the incandecent area or collectors area here at CPF much of that information is written down so to speak. And the wonderful search feature here makes sure the inquisitive mind can access that information. I used to read threads here until my eyes watered.

The thing I'll miss the most from flashlight museum is the collections section. Good gosh those folks were big time flashaholics. Behind every big time flashaholic is a very understanding wife. Steve Gitterman for example has a home that is literally wall to wall flashlight displays. And every single one works.
 
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