research
 Patents
 Books
 Literature
 Articles
 Timeline
 Auction Archive

about
 About this site
 Wanted to buy

bulb gallery

Incandescent:
C
carbon
WD
drawn tungsten
WC
coiled tungsten
WM
mini tungsten
WS
pressed tung.
FG
figural bulbs
XL
christmas
XS
christmas sets
T
tantalum

Discharge:
NE
neon lamps
AR
argon lamps
XE
xenon lamps
MA
mercury
MC
fluorescent
MS
special mercury

Hardware:
F
fuses
FX
fixtures
PF
plugs & fittings
SA
sockets
SW
switches

tube gallery

 X-ray
 Geissler
 Crookes
 Radio
 Box art

museum pics

 Dr. Hugh Hicks
 
Fort Myers, FL.
 S.Slabyhoudek

links

 Related links
 Submit a link

 

Author Topic: Christmas Bulbs  (Read 17732 times)

Offline rick

  • New Member!
  • *
  • Posts: 6
Christmas Bulbs
« on: January 24, 2007, 06:59:33 pm »
Hello all,

While I do collect bulbs of different sizes, none of the bulbs are of the Christmas or holiday variety. No special reason for this, other than I just haven't come across many interesting ones. My questions are; Approx. what year did folks start using incandescent illumination for seasonal decorative purposes? Were they strung, or single units? Colored? What country first started using bulbs for this purpose? I'd appreciate any comments.

Rick

Offline Chris W. Millinship

  • Hero Member
  • ****
  • Posts: 384
Re: Christmas Bulbs
« Reply #1 on: January 25, 2007, 02:54:34 pm »
You will find a huge wealth of information about the origin and evolution of electrical lighting for christmas time at http://oldchristmaslights.com , profusely illustrated with real examples and quite fascinating to see. It is written from the USA`s point of view and I don`t know how the timeline translates to other countries, but expect the rest of the world did not take that long to catch up. I don`t know if it started there, but it is likely it did.

I have never encountered the earliest (carbon filament) type of lights here in the UK, but finding any very old British lights can be quite difficult. There are fewer of us here after all, and the War probably didn`t help either. I know electrical lighting in general was being developed here simultaneously (and independently) with the States, but have little evidence the early lamps were ever produced for as seasonal decorative purposes. There may have been some produced, and I would be very interested to know if that were the case. The earliest examples in my own collection appear to come from the 1930s and use coiled tungsten lamps.

:)

Offline rick

  • New Member!
  • *
  • Posts: 6
Re: Christmas Bulbs
« Reply #2 on: January 25, 2007, 06:29:18 pm »

Thanks Chris, this is a great link. What a wealth of information!