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The Light Bulb. We all have them. They`re everywhere, and without them, modern life would not exist as we know it. The development of artificial lights has got to be one of the most important things to happen in the last 200 years and has revolutionised the way we live our lives. There are literally thousands of different types of artificial lights avaliable today, developed for every illumination application you could think of, and many you couldn`t!I`ve been collecting all kinds of light bulbs now for many years though only in recent years have I taken it more seriously. Before then, when I was younger, I had an interest in bulbs and did buy one or 2 I liked the look of, but I never really tried to find out much about them. They glowed.....and that was good enough for me. As I got older their appeal changed as I began to take notice of the different methods of construction and different technologies used. And last year, everything changed completely when the Internet came into my life. Suddenly there was a whole world`s worth of bulbs there for the taking and I discovered the wonderful world of foreign and antique light bulbs. Now a year on, my collection has probably tripled and as a guess (cos right now I havn`t got a clue) I may have 2000 of the things here, all piled in boxes and waiting for me to build some display shelves for them all. The best part of discovering the internet was getting in touch with other collectors. I thought I was all alone but it turned out not so, there are quite a few others out there including a good friend of mine who lives nearby here in South Wales most of the time.  This section of my web site will be devoted to displaying my collection in a sort of virtual gallery of images and associated information, arranged into sub categories. Currently I have split this category into 5 sub-categories, though as my collection broadens in diversity I may add more, such as one for HID lamps of which I have very few right now. The age-ranges for modern, vintage and antique bulbs are of my own designation and aren`t official figures. These also may change over time. As the category grows, a fast-find page will be introduced to make searching for a particular bulb a lot easier.At present I know little about most of the bulbs I have, information about older bulbs especially is quite hard to find over the internet but it is out there in some shape or form. I would like to invite future visitors of these galleries you see on the left, to email me if they have any information they wish to share about the bulbs featured within. This way it will help other collectors and enthusiasts to learn about their chosen interest and hopefuly inspire some visitors to take up light bulb collecting for themselves. Despite what many may think, light bulbs are fascinating things and once you start to look at them more closely, and the role they play in our everyday life, you will hopefully begin to see the attraction they have to us collectors. |
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July 20th. Updated the former Miniature gallery to now include Miniature-and-Neon bulbs- and added its first 8 items. July 9th. Updated the pages on the Thorn Experimental lamp (Modern section), the GE globe with the unusual logo and the GE 300 watt clear lamp (Vintage section) and corrected the (former) British Osram tungsten lamp in the Antique section- it`s actually German. |
