Vintage lamps/light fixtures

[tonyb]

My current house is not old - ~35 years. We've only been in Nashville for about 6 tears. I bought most of the fixtures for my Cincinnati house, Cotswold Tudor style, that was pushing 100 years. I couldn't stand to let them go to someone that wouldn't appreciate them. I'll dig out a couple of pics of each and post them.

Yeah, I can dig that. It would be almost heartbreaking to see one ceiling fixture in particular here ripped out and thrown away.

 

[Bugguy]

Here's a mate to the fixture in my first series:

Here are the offspring:

This is one of my favorites. Cleaned and re-wired:

 

[Bugguy]

My latest vintage light acquisition to adapt for my kitchen... two 1970s mid-century holophane pendant lights from the demolished Weir-Cook Terminal (2013) at the Indianapolis Municipal Airport. A friend picked 2 dozen of these and they were inexpensive to me.

You can see they were pendant fixtures that I adapted to ceiling mounts. These original glass fresnel fixtures are really heavy and have since been replaced by polycarbonate.

Original:

RESTORED:

 

[tonyb]

^^^^^
Quite nice.

I’m trying to figure out how the glass fits into the metal ceiling fixture. In the “before” it appears that the top of the glass protrudes well beyond what we’re seeing in the “after.” Does it extend into the metal? Or was it cut down? Or what appears in the “before” photos to be part of the glass is not that at all?

 

[Bugguy]

Ahhhhh, that's the magic. Here's the deconstructed look:

The ring is keyed so the socket assembly locks into place. A white shroud covers the socket assembly, so I found a fitter that would also cover it. The 1/2" hanging pipe threads into the socket where the wires are emerging. I used a 1/2"-1/4" pipe reducer to take a regular 1/4" threaded lamp tube. The tube extends up through the fitter canopy into a regular lamp bar in the ceiling box. By adjusting the drop, I bring the fitter to the ceiling and can snug it between the ceiling and the lamp. The weight is being held by the fitter.



The metal band connecting the two glass halves is welded, so they don't separate. My pain point is that the bulb must go in before I assemble and hang the light. The fitter/fixture gets dropped and the fitter unscrewed to access the socket.



The wire is a nifty solution to avoid dropping the glass when servicing. It's attached to the ceiling fixture.



Does this bring some clarity??

 

[tonyb]

…

Does this bring some clarity??

I’m working on it.

 

[tonyb]

This one is something of a frankenfixture. It started life as one of those pull-down dining room fixtures circa 1960(?). The original glass shade and pull-down handle were missing when it was acquired by the guy I bought it from. He fitted it with its current shade and attendant hardware, etc.

 

[tonyb]

As long as I’m in a circa-1960 groove …

This basic style was popular for just a few years in the late-’50s/early-’60s. I wish there was a generally agreed name for it. I’ve heard “rocket lamp” once or twice, but that’s about it.

 

[tonyb]

My latest vintage light acquisition to adapt for my kitchen... two 1970s mid-century holophane pendant lights from the demolished Weir-Cook Terminal (2013) at the Indianapolis Municipal Airport. A friend picked 2 dozen of these and they were inexpensive to me.
…

Was the razing of the building much of a loss? Never been to IND myself, so I couldn’t say. But if those fixtures are an indication, it likely had something to recommend it. Good to see that at least that much of it survives.

I’ve mentioned before how I was part of a crew c.1980 that cleared out an old hotel building that had sat vacant for at least a couple decades. Among the tons of stuff — lamps, dressers, bedsteads, etc. — that got relegated to the landfill were scores (at least, maybe hundreds) of glass light fixture globes. A few got saved by a couple guys (my brother and a brother-in-law), but one of those guys has been gone for 14 years now and the other will be joining him before long. If the salvaged pieces survive, I’d have no idea where to find them.

 

[Doctor Strange]

While not exactly a lamp or a light fixture in the sense of the others, I thought these might be of interest...

These are WWII-surplus US Army Air Force landing strip lights, banks of fluorescent tubes that include heater circuits to keep them working in cold conditions. My parents, the professional commercial photographers, bought them in the late forties, and used them to illuminate countless b/w photographs, mostly made on 4x5 sheet film, right up into the late nineties.





I took these pictures when we were dismantling the studio in 2011. Aside from a couple of bad tubes or ballasts, these lights were still working just fine a decade later. I ultimately sold them to a photographer who has a storefront tintype studio(!) nearby. He planned to have them rewired (undoubtedly a good idea!) and believes that their color temperature will be excellent for tintype portraits - perhaps even better than the modern "softbox" lights he's currently using. And of course, they're as "vintage" as the assorted old view cameras he's adapted for tintypes.

Boy, was this stuff built to last!

 

[tonyb]

What with the “industrial” interior design trend we’ve witnessed in recent years, I can easily envision salvaged warehouse lighting and the like fetching big money.

 

[Bugguy]

Was the razing of the building much of a loss? Never been to IND myself, so I couldn’t say. But if those fixtures are an indication, it likely had something to recommend it. Good to see that at least that much of it survives.

I’ve mentioned before how I was part of a crew c.1980 that cleared out an old hotel building that had sat vacant for at least a couple decades. Among the tons of stuff — lamps, dressers, bedsteads, etc. — that got relegated to the landfill were scores (at least, maybe hundreds) of glass light fixture globes. A few got saved by a couple guys (my brother and a brother-in-law), but one of those guys has been gone for 14 years now and the other will be joining him before long. If the salvaged pieces survive, I’d have no idea where to find them.

Here are some pictures of the demolition... https://www.indystar.com/picture-ga...olis-international-airport-terminal/34214229/

I like your hanging lamp. It looks nice as is or could be tightened up. Definitely a keeper!

 

[tonyb]

…

I like your hanging lamp. It looks nice as is or could be tightened up. Definitely a keeper!

It’s now in a bedroom, over an almost-antique brass bed. If it weren’t over such an obstacle (such as a dining table, as it was designed to be), a person taller than 6’3” or so might bang his or her head on it.

And that’s at its present extension. It can be lowered.

As best I can tell, this type of pull-down fixture was in production for only a few years. I gotta think that the cloth-wrapped cable that got wound around the spool inside that shroud or cover or whatever it’s called could get wound only so many times before the wires started to fail.

I recall them being a common sight back 50 to 60 years ago, but besides this one, I can think of only one other I’ve seen in actual use in at least a couple decades. And probably longer than that.