Gold lamp light

[poetman]

In most of the Golden Era photos of homes or offices, the lights emit a yellow hue. I know that gaslight does this, but besides a yellow shade or an amber bulb, how can I reproduce this yellow lamp light at home?

Thanks!

 

[Shangas]

Candles?

Seriously though, I think the effect of the kinda old-fashioned yellow lighting is a result of the technology of the time. The old-fashioned incandescent bulbs used a lower wattage, so the glow was not as bright and therefore, yellow.

 

[poetman]

So just use a 40 watt or lower?

 

[Shangas]

My sensibilities tell me that modern lightbulbs use more electricity, and therefore, burn brighter. In older times, lightbulbs didn't use so much juice. You can see it if you have a flashlight. A flashlight with fresh batteries has a bright, white glow. A flashlight with half-dead batteries lets off a more yellowish, weaker glow.

Obviously, you can't change the amount of power coming into your house. But you could probably change how much of that power your lightbulbs use by simply using lower-wattage bulbs.

I may be totally wrong, but to achieve that effect, I believe that's the correct thing to be done.

 

[CONELRAD]

Yes, vintage incandescent light bulbs used much less electricity. I have a vintage 10 watt 20 volt bulb that provides only slightly less light than a modern 45 watt 120 volt bulb.

This thread inspired me to perform a little experiment to see the difference that multiple bulbs cast on their environment...

I used four light bulbs in the vintage lamp you see above the bulbs:

Vintage 10W 20V bulb, modern 45W 120V bulb, modern 25W 120V vanity globe (like I use in my bedroom lamp), modern 75W 120V bulb. Look at the shadow to see the brightness best. For best results, all pictures were taken with no flash in a darkened room, save for the first one.

Here's the vintage bulb:

It generates that nice comfortable yellow glow.

Here's the 45W bulb:

It generates a fairly yellow, but slightly brighter light than the vintage bulb.

Here's the vanity globe:

The light from this one is quite a bit whiter, and slightly brighter than the vintage.

Finally, here's the 75W bulb:

It looks much yellower, but it's actually much whiter, my camera just couldn't get the colors right becouse of its intense brightness.

In the end, the yellowest is the vintage one, but all of the lower wattage bulbs were yellower than the average modern day 60W bulb. I'd recommend using them, too, they give off a much more welcoming and comfortable feeling than brighter bulbs.

It's also worth noting that the vintage bulb is made of much thicker glass, and, while the others become intensely hot after a few seconds, the vintage bulb does not heat beyond mildly warm after extended use. In reality, if we could go back to making bulbs like we used to, we wouldn't have to worry about banning incandescents in favor of those darned compact fluorescents.

 

[poetman]

Conelrad, thanks for the experiments and close-up shots. That's great! So outside of getting some vintage bulbs, I'll use some 40 watts for now. I bought a
yellow hued candle style 40 watt bulb for a vintage brass lamp. This looks close but isn't ideal.

 

[dhermann1]

I also believe that the human eye compensates for the yellowishness of incandescent bulbs. When you see photographs it looks very yellow. But if you were to see the actual scene live, it would not look as yellow to your eye.

 

[CONELRAD]

I also believe that the human eye compensates for the yellowishness of incandescent bulbs. When you see photographs it looks very yellow. But if you were to see the actual scene live, it would not look as yellow to your eye.

That may very well be true, but I can say that some of the first bulbs were yellower to my eyes than the picture shows, the last one looked white as can be (of course, I know more about light bulbs than I do about the inner workings of the human eye).

I would recommend using bulbs similar to the 45W and the vanity globe above. They're not too bright, but they give off plenty of light to do almost any task (that I can think of) that you'd need light for. I've used both of those in lamps in my day-to-day life and I like them better than brighter bulbs. Plus, in my opinion, the 45W bulb looks similar to a vintage bulb, filament and all.

 

[John in Covina]

In most of the Golden Era photos of homes or offices, the lights emit a yellow hue. I know that gaslight does this, but besides a yellow shade or an amber bulb, how can I reproduce this yellow lamp light at home? Thanks!

Incandescent lights usually give a warmer tone towards yellow and red than CFLs. Also back then the wattage was lower in most lights so they were not as bright at all. If you go to the Edison a bar in LA they have low watt incandescents all over the place so it gives a very antique feel to the lighting and the space.

 

[vitanola]

Older lamps operated their filaments at a lower temperature so that the more primitive bulbs would have an acceptable life. Bulb life and filament temperature are inversely related. The old carbon filament lamps, whiich dominated the lighting field before the Great War, operated at a filament temperature of around 1900K-2000K and consumed between three and four watts of power for each candlepower of light that they produced. Early metallic filament lamps were operated at a temperature of 2300K-2500K and consumed between one-and-three-quarter and two-and-one-half watts per candlepower "Modern" metallic filament lamps, which were developed in the late 1920's operate at between 2600K and 2800K and consume around one watt per candlepower.

 

[CONELRAD]

Today, I was at Home Depot for some naphtha to clean my newest hat, and on my way out, I happened to see this:


It comes in 40W and 60W, as you can see, I bought the 40W version.


Here you can see the new bulb compared to an actual vintage bulb, note the filament. The new bulb actually seems to have thicker glass than the typical modern bulb, and doesn't seem to heat up as much either, though it does get hotter than the vintage bulb.


The pictures shows more of a yellow tint than reality, but this bulb's glow was the yellowest of the ones I've tested.


Here's a close-up of the filament.

I would recommend these to anyone looking for such a thing, in fact, I might have to go back for more myself. You can find them online here: http://www.homedepot.com/h_d1/N-5yc...word=Feit+Electric&storeId=10051#.UQH9imcXCQo

 

[vitanola]

Today, I was at Home Depot for some naphtha to clean my newest hat, and on my way out, I happened to see this:


It comes in 40W and 60W, as you can see, I bought the 40W version.


Here you can see the new bulb compared to an actual vintage bulb, note the filament. The new bulb actually seems to have thicker glass than the typical modern bulb, and doesn't seem to heat up as much either, though it does get hotter than the vintage bulb.


The pictures shows more of a yellow tint than reality, but this bulb's glow was the yellowest of the ones I've tested.



Here's a close-up of the filament.

I would recommend these to anyone looking for such a thing, in fact, I might have to go back for more myself. You can find them online here: http://www.homedepot.com/h_d1/N-5yc...word=Feit+Electric&storeId=10051#.UQH9imcXCQo

The "actual vintage bulb" that you show is little sign lamp, a long-lived unit which may have been made last week.

The reproduction bulb that you show is pretty nice, but not much like anything really used in the period.

The "cage filament" lamps are much netter approximations of the lamps used between 1910 and 1925 or 1926. i've used literally hundreds of them in various lighting installations. Post-1926 lamps used a coild coil filament were argon filled, and were often inside frosted, just like moern lamps. Then tended to burn with a more yellowish color because line voltage tended to be lower in most installations, averaging around 110-115 volts rather than the 127 volts commonly found today. This small differentce in voltage makes a big difference in lamp color.

The typical multiple lamp overhead (shaded) fixture back in the early 1920's was typically fitted with 25 or 40 wat lamps.

The unshaded fixtures which came into fashion in the middle of the decade wereusually fitted with spherical bulbs finished in a matte burnt orange , generally these bulbs were rated at either 25 or 40 watts. Candle style chandeliers wereusually fitted with small spherical lamps, finished in a matte white or ivory. The flame shaped bulbs were uncommon until the 1930's.

By the late 1920's 50, 60, or even 75 watt bulbs were common. Reading lamps often used 100 wat bulbs even in the 1920's, overhead "schoolhouse" fixtures in kitchens were usually fitted with 150 watt Type C Mazda lamps.

They typical 1920's table or floor standard lamp would have been fitted with a pair of 50 or later 6o watt bulbs, with a shade which tended to directlight down, with little upward reflection. the popular single-light Bridge Lamps would commonly have a 60 watt bulb, with a 100 wattunit being occasionally used in a lamp next to a favorite reading chair.


By the mid-1930's, indirect lighting, with tale and floor lamps fitted with partially reflective glass bowls inside a fabric shade became extremely popular. A typicla floor lamp of this style would be fitted with a 300-200-100 watt three-way Mogul based lamp in the bowl and three ordinary 40 watt lamps on the surrounding arms, all inside a light colored shade of 19 or 20 inches in diameter.

Please note that I'm writing as a light bulb and lighting fixture collector of thirty-five years. I've owned and restored hundreds of period fixtures, have seem many of them in situ in their original installations, have owned thousands of original bulbs, which I have used, and to some extent duplicated.

 

[Absinthe_1900]

Maybe these would be the ticket?

http://www.kyp-go.com/products.htm

 

[vitanola]

Maybe these would be the ticket?

http://www.kyp-go.com/products.htm

Those delitghtfully inefficient Carbon Filament lamps arw more appropriate for creating the lighting effects of the pre-1910 period.

http://www.bulbcollector.com/

Offers a good deal of information, though the site tends to concentrate on the odd, the commercial, to the exclusion of some of the more commonly used stuff.

Here is a caalog of typical high quality light fixtures of the 1940 period. These give clear, bright, indirect light, and are hardly what one would think about when discussing "dim, Golden-age lighting".

http://archive.org/details/I.E.S.BetterLight-BetterSightLamps

Earlier on, say from 1915-1926 or 27 these bulbs would be more appropriate:

http://www.antiquelampsupply.com/product/3690_edison-base-squirrel-cage-light-bulb

 

[CONELRAD]

I feel certain that the "actual vintage bulb" is fairly old, but I never thought it to be earlier than the 1940s, it came with that little Bakelite lamp thing, and I know that that doesn't mean a thing, but it's not a new bulb, it's fairly worn. It certainly isn't new. I'm also well aware that the reproduction bulb is not accurate, but it's still fun and neat.

Speaking of the Bakelite fixture, would you happen to know what the purpose of that is? It has a cord that spools up inside when you turn the base and no sort of switch at all, what you see there is all there is to it. I have no idea of its intended purpose, but I use it in that little photography set up you see there.

 

[vitanola]

This is a typical semi-indirect fixture of a pattern which was very popular between 1915 and 1920. They were generally fitted with three sockets, whhich would usually hold 50 or 60 wat Mazda lamps. These ower wired with "electrolier"wall switches, allowing either one, two or all three bulbs to be lit. These fixtures were also occasionally found with a single socket, to hold a 150 watt Mazda C lamp. These fixtures give a very soft, shadow-free light. Popular in dining rooms of the better class and in libraries.

Now here we have a small electric shower type fixture. These became popular before 1910 and faded from fashion by the mid-1920's. These fixtures, which were commonly found in two, three, four and occasionally five lit versions were usually fitted with 50 watt Mazda lamps. In installations of the better class these fixtures would often be wired to electrolier switches to allow easy control of light level.

These little fixtures were practically ubiquitous in kitchens between 1920 and 1945. They were heavily promoted by the local electric utilities, whoch would often arrange installation for a nominal charge. These were designed to use a 150 watt Mazda Type C nitrogen-filled lamp. The contours of the shade were not random. They recflected about sixty percent of the lit from the ceiling, to once again give soft, clar and nearly shadow-free light to a kitchen. Tha shades were designed with the bulbs of the period in mind, which were larger and more particularly longer than modern bulbs of the same wattage. If a modern lamp is used in one fo these fixtures without lowering the socket postion to put the focal point of the filament in the correct position the lit distribution is quite poor.

Typical occasional lamp of the 1925-1930 period. Single socket, embroidered silk
shade, lined with pale pink silk (fine lampshades were coommonly lined with pink silk in the best rooms, as the light reflected from this material was very flattering to the female complexion).
This fixture would have been fitted with a 50 or 60 watt Mazda lamp. If used in an odd corner or atop a radio, it would likely have been equipped with a 25 watt lamp.

Bridge lamp of the better grade. This lamp would have sold for between fifteen and twenty dollars between the end of WWI and 1930 or so. Cheaper lamps would have iron or brass-plated steel bases and little parchment shades. These cheaper lamps sold for between $2.65 and $5.00. These lamps would have been fitted with 60 to 100 watt Mazda lamps. They provide a fine reading light behing a comfortable easy chair.


P

Floor or Standard lamp of the 1920-1930 period. These used sixteen to eighteen incch diameter shades and were fitted with two or three 50 or 60 watt Mazda lamps, each individually controlled to allow easy variation of light level.

Note that the table and standard lamps of the 'teens and 'twenties generally reflect most light downward, creating pools of light in an otherwise darkened room, whereas the better lamps pf the 1930's and 1940's generally feflected much of their light from the ceiling, offering uniform general illumination.

 

[Shangas]

We used to have hanging-fixtures like those pendants, in our house, which was built in the 60s. I can only say that they were a pain in the ass. Whenever you had to change a lightbulb, you had to take the glass bowls off them, and they took forever to remove, then dust, then reattach (our particular pendants were of a design where there were several "leaves" of glass all hanging on hooks, to give the illusion of a hanging plant).

I am glad to say, we got rid of them. They were a nightmare to maintain.

 

[vitanola]

We used to have hanging-fixtures like those pendants, in our house, which was built in the 60s. I can only say that they were a pain in the ass. Whenever you had to change a lightbulb, you had to take the glass bowls off them, and they took forever to remove, then dust, then reattach (our particular pendants were of a design where there were several "leaves" of glass all hanging on hooks, to give the illusion of a hanging plant).

I am glad to say, we got rid of them. They were a nightmare to maintain.

The bowl fixtures reamined popular in Commonwealth nations long after they had passed out of fashion here in the 'states. The best of the American fixtures were made of a opal galss which reflected most light from the ceiling. Commonwealth fixtures, particularly the later ones were generally made of thin common glass coated with a painted finish. These tend not to have nearly as good a light distribution. The fixture that I showed in the upper photo is a Stueben Alabasterine fixture, a cameo glass bowl with a heavy opal glass base cased with a pale Rose overlay, cut through to the white. Many of these fixtures uer cast of opal glass, and the owls were as much as a half inch thick. These fixtures were originally carefully designed with good lighting distribution in mind, but as time progresses and the style of fixture became popular and then migrated down market to less expensive price points, many of the requirements of good lighting design were abandoned whicl retaining vestiges of the style.

The better American fixtures allow changing of lamps without removing the shade. The nly maintenence problem is that the open fixtures do tend to catch bugs, a real problem here in late autumn, when the local farmer's ladybugs invade for winter shelter, but a vacuum sweeper with a hose and dusting brush soon remedies the matter.

We generally take our shades down once a year for washing as part of our spring cleaning, after a winter of soot and dust have soiled them. It is ot too much trouble, though in the big house we have sixty-five shades to clean. A dishpan of hot sudsy water with a little addes washing soda makes quick work of them. It is much more trouble to care for the carpets than the chandeliers.

 

[Bruce Wayne]

Bump.

I was reading an article about the phase-out of incandesent bulbs after the 1st of the year & it got me thinking of repro bulbs & if they are included. I know that certain incandesents are stil legal to make & buy such as those that are used in appliances, roug service, marine & auto.

Thanx!!!
Charlie

 

[Bruce Wayne]

http://m.livescience.com/42025-5-myths-light-bulb-ban-eisa.html