What a cool lamps!
As a lover of genuine and pure mercury light, I'm very interested about all kind of non coated nor corrected mercury lamps, so, always is a true pleasure to watch any samples of these.
The first one of these lamps (Pintsch 500 HQ) are very similar to my Philips HP 80w, (the same as used as my avatar picture), unless that? Pintsh are 120 watts rated and fitted with three prong British bayonet cap.
Mines (I have two of them) has naturally, the regular Continental Europe E27 Edison screw, and are 80 watt rated.
Both lamp types are slightly different about arc tube constitution, because the Pintshc 500 HQ were manufactured many years before HP's.
The arc tube within my HP's are manufactured in the well known modern pressed ends system, using the standard quartz/molybdenum foil sealing method.
As can be seen at the picture of the Pintsch 500 HQ, at the lower left corner, the seals of the arc tube seems to be the same that those earlier quartz tubes used in 1930's - 1940's high pressure mercury lamps. It looks like if it were made by means of the older system based in the use of lead-in seals constituted by stacked glasses whose dilatation coefficients are decreasing from metal wire to equal those of the quartz, in the same way than in the "Philora" HP300.
Please, tell me if this are correct or I'm wrong.
I've included pictures of one of my highly appreciated Philips HP80 w, manufactured in late 50's or early 60's.
These mercury frosted bulbs were at service at my countryside home's street lamps from 1982 (when I purchased them as a retail store from a lighting and electrical supplier in Madrid) until 1988, when I substituted them by new-brand Philips HP's and Thorn-Emi MB-U's, clear ovoid types, also non corrected lamps, with the same spectral distribution too.
Today, these external lighting lanterns are fitted with cheaper but superb Chinese Luxman GGY 80 and 125 watts. clear ovoid mercury lamps that I bought in a huge quantity at last year. So, I can regard all the purity of mercury light ambiance colour at my countryside home's gardens without to sacrifice these old and highly collectible HP's.?
Thanks in advance and best regards,
M. Gonz?lez.
