Glass Message Board
Glass Identification - Post here for all ID requests => Glass => Topic started by: Alastair on September 20, 2008, 09:36:07 AM
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I have an old scientific Maltese Cross tube which I'm keen to date. It has the word "Foreign" etched on it and I believe this was a legal requirement for some period in the first half of the 20th century.
Does anyone know when exactly?
Alastair
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What's a Maltese Cross tube? Do you have a photo?
Welcome to the board!
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Thanks for the welcome.
There's some Maltese Cross tubes at the top of this page -
http://members.chello.nl/~h.dijkstra19/page7.html
Alastair
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Crookes Tubes are still made by scientific lampworkers on request and the glass and internals would be hard to date. The stand is the most likely way to date it but the best place to get information would be on the forums here
http://www.bulbcollector.com/
A picture is necessary.
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Wow, those are nifty! What's up with the glass getting "tired" after being subjected to electrons for a while, and glowing less strongly? Interesting.
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Crookes Tubes are still made by scientific lampworkers on request and the glass and internals would be hard to date. The stand is the most likely way to date it but the best place to get information would be on the forums here
http://www.bulbcollector.com/
A picture is necessary.
These tubes are notoriously difficult to date, that's why I thought the word "Foreign" etched on one of my tubes might help pin it down. The stands aren't as much use as you might think as there are no guarantees that a tube still has its original stand,
Alastair
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I can't be certain but think Foreign on UK imports suggests 50s, 60s
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Crookes Tubes are still made by scientific lampworkers on request and the glass and internals would be hard to date. The stand is the most likely way to date it but the best place to get information would be on the forums here
http://www.bulbcollector.com/
A picture is necessary.
These tubes are notoriously difficult to date, that's why I thought the word "Foreign" etched on one of my tubes might help pin it down. The stands aren't as much use as you might think as there are no guarantees that a tube still has its original stand,
Alastair
What a fascinating website! I was able to ID an old lightbulb we have as a tantalum. Thank you :hiclp:
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Triple check as most of my 'Tantalum' filaments turned out not to be when checked by more experienced researchers :P post pics on their forum with the best close up of parts of the filaments possible to verify.
Tantalum are very rare.
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I have an old Siemens and Halske "Tantalrohre" X-ray tube. I believe the target is Tantalum. That one is easy to date because it's in their 1909 catalogue and designs were changing so rapidly back then.
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Alastair have you read my incomplete history of electric lighting?
http://www.debook.com/Bulbs/lightbulbs.htm
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Triple check as most of my 'Tantalum' filaments turned out not to be when checked by more experienced researchers :P post pics on their forum with the best close up of parts of the filaments possible to verify.
Tantalum are very rare.
OK, will do. I was too quick off the mark.Chances of us having anything rare are well, rare! ;)
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Alastair have you read my incomplete history of electric lighting?
http://www.debook.com/Bulbs/lightbulbs.htm
No I haven't and I don't even want to go there. God knows where it would end if I got interested in lightbulbs! ;D
Just kidding, I bookmarked the site for a read later.
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I know where it leads ;) but you will find more in your interest area on Kilokat's site.
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Yes, I already know Kilokats site. There's some good glow photos of Crookes and Geissler tubes there.
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Triple check as most of my 'Tantalum' filaments turned out not to be when checked by more experienced researchers :P post pics on their forum with the best close up of parts of the filaments possible to verify.
Tantalum are very rare.
OK, will do. I was too quick off the mark.Chances of us having anything rare are well, rare! ;)
Thanks for the advice, Frank. I can't seem to register for the forums so I've sent him an email with a some photos. Fingers crossed ;)
I just had a trundle around in your lighting book..oh dear, I feel a new interest coming on!
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It can be a cheap collection if you avoid the very earliest bulbs. For decorative there were a lot of almost sculptural and figural designs made during the 1900-1915 period that are hard to find but always worth buying if you spot them.
From the glass perspective, earlier bulb envelopes tend to be lead glass but by the 20s as the technology developed it was realised that soda did just as well and was cheaper. Then just about every glass formulation and decorative technique you can imagine has been used - it would be possible to compile a history of glass techniques from bulbs alone. Virtually every glassworks in the world were blowing envelopes from 1900-c1920 when automation began - during that period it was the main products of the Schneider Brothers and Salvador Ysart left them to join Edinburgh Crystal where he taught light bulb blowing. A lot of glass companies probably failed because of the sudden loss of business when automation came in. Even today specialist bulbs are still free blown in many glass works and such items as Crookes Tubes do not lend themselves to automation. LED bulbs will signal the end of the use of glass as heat and vacuum are no longer involved. In social terms it was probably the most important technological development of the time. The industries history is often used as a one of the best documented example of modern global business practice. So it can be a fascinating field of discovery that due to its utilitarian nature has had a relatively small following.
You can even use the old bulbs, on a lower voltage to keep them lasting and it would be a good way of adding highlights to a decorative collection. Various people supply the raw materials for making lamps in the old way and some artists have created them as part of art-works.
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Frank, I didn't read your whole light bulb history, but at least scanned the first few sections. There's some fascinating stuff there! Like the lighthouse that worked by separating oxygen and hydrogen and using that to heat a block of limestone to make it glow...that's just bizarre! Wish I understood it. And using a strand of bamboo as a lightbulb filament! How would anyone even have thought to try it? I suppose there must have been some precedent.
Edison had 25,000 patents!!! What a mind, what an imagination.
Great work, Frank!
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That is the root of the expression "In the limelight" as Limelights were used in theatres etc. too.
Edison got lucky with his first invention and then just kept hiring lab workers, every day they tested thousand of different materials. His real genius was spotting good ideas of others and being the first mass production laboratory - nearly all of his inventions were achieved by trial and error on an immense scale. Which is not to belittle what he achieved. Swan actually beat him to it working on his own.
The precedent was Davy in 1805 and then Swan using carbonised paper in 1860 but he used metals and the technology was just not good enough until a tungsten filament was developed by A Just & F Hanaman (Austria) in 1903. What Edison, who only started his search in 1876, and Swan achieved was to find a practical material for large scale production. It was only by combining their patents that the light bulb industry could start.
The developments of the light bulb resulted in synthetic fibres too. It was my research that showed this was by Italian Cruto in 1880, previously credited to Swan 1881. My one real contribution to the history.
My own emphasis was more on the social history. I hope to be able to continue by researching the almost unknown but massive impact it had on the glass industry. Both in building it in the early 20th century and the damage caused by automation in the 1920s - an untold story. But first I have a few sites to build :sleep:
But the lightbulb was not really an invention after Faraday and Davy's work, everything was a step by step improvement on their invention that took about 80 years to come to fruition. Materials - Vacuum pump - Synthetic fibres - the dynamo - power distribution - bonding metal and glass and many more small improvements. All a result of that single purpose development process.
The best run-down of the development stages is in my calendar:
http://www.debook.com/Bulbs/LB22calendar.htm
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The names you mention are interesting - Davy, Faraday, Swan and Edison. I recognise them as four of the five names inscribed over the grandiose Victorian doorway to Sheffield Town hall (my home city). The sculpture is called Steam and Electricity and the names are inscribed on the electricity side. I suppose electic lighting was brand new when the town hall was built and I know there's a very early electrical chandelier in the main stairwell.
http://public-art.shu.ac.uk/sheffield/pom130im.html
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/ed/Sheffield_Town_Hall_grand_staircase.jpg
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Presumably the fifth was Wheatstone? His contribution was not directly related to the lightbulb - except that without it it would have taken a lot longer to realise that creating light would have a relationship to materials.
I did not know about that frieze nor the gorgeous chandelier. The use of shades was unusual that early, as the lightbulbs themselves were what people wondered at. Perhaps the shades were added later?
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That is one amazing chandelier! For some reason I especially like the huge metal chain it's hanging from, though of course the rest is awfully impressive. I was struck by the shades, too, though not for the same reason. Seems like bare bulbs would illuminate the winged nymphs better (egads, they can't be angels if they're shamelessly baring their bosoms, can they? :angel: ;)). And the shades just look new. Someone go set 'em straight! We want historical accuracy! ;D
I'm reminded again and again on this board how short the "civilized" (rotten word for it) history of the Minnesota is compared to that of Europe. Around here a really old house is one that was built in the 1880s.
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I'm not sure about those shades now.
I looked at the photo in my architectural guide to Sheffield (don't laugh) and the shades aren't there, no wires, no lighting just the bulbs around the globe. In the text it says "each winged figure originally held a lamp, symbolically lighting the four corners of the world". So I have no idea if the shades are there or not now and what the original design was. I'll look into this and take another look at the chandelier, or "Electrolier" as they call it.
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I asked on another forum and someone uploaded a photo of the Electrolier from the official program from 1897.
Here it is showing the lampshades to be original -
(http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3210/2887644355_8dc388baf8_b.jpg)
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That's a great image. Puts it more in perspective. What a great piece of history, and a nice bit of luck that someone had the old program!
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Also very useful image as far as the history of shades too.
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There's a story about the opening of the Town Hall in 1897. The building was opened by Queen Victoria, using a remote control lock from her carriage. She was old and infirm and remained in her carriage for the entire opening. The turning of the key in the lock triggered a light in the building which was the signal for three concealed men to open the gates. The impression given was turning the key actually opened the door by remote control.
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Hi,
Prior to the emergence of the light-bulb, electrical lighting was acheived mainly using the arch-light, later arc light, again a Davy invention. Certainly one of the earliest users of this system was Sir William? Armstrong's house "Cragside", in Northumberland, which is widely thought also to be the first house in the world to be powered by hydro-electricity. It is noted that the house boasted the use of light-bulbs from 1880.
Regards,
Marcus
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Not quite, I suspect the first domestic lighting would have happened in France, but never been able to trace that. Just possibly they also beat Davy to the first public demonstration of electric light in 1801 (a Louis Jacques de Thenard) - but again not documented in English. The French were the first to develop electric power and lighting commercially. The earliest documented domestic use in 'English':
However Moses G. Farmer of Salem, Mass. USA, who produced an important dynamo design, had lit a room in his house with similar (platinum filament) lamps as early as 1858 for a period of several months.
Limelight was used commercially before the Arc lamp. The arc lamp continued in use until c1960 but was never practical for dometsic use.
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But limelight was not an electrical technology, not directly, anyway. Was electricity necessary to separate hydrogen and oxygen? Chemistry was always a tough subject for me, and I remember very little of it.
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No, you can use acid and Zinc but that is not effective for commercial production. I also wrote "The discovery of Electro-magnetic induction in 1831 by Michael Faraday and Joseph Henry, independently in America, led to the development of cheaper methods of producing electricity. This was first put to use in the South Foreland lighthouse on the 8th December 1858 using a French, Compagnie de l’Alliance dynamo to convert water into hydrogen and oxygen which was used to produce light by heating a block of limestone to incandescence." It is thus a slightly different approach to producing incandescence from carbon (Arc light and the carbon filaments of Swan, Edison and others.) Limelight was a lower level technology but did require electricity to be practical. For others it was vital and for the lightbulb the one other need was an effective vacuum pump. So each step was an advance in technology that relied on electricity.
Today we also have a light source borrowed from nature, using sophisticated technology, that does not require electricity to produce light. Then LED's which exploit much lower levels of electricity. Both of those do not need glass.
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I was thinking of theater limelights as well as the lighthouse when I wrote. According to this Wikipedia article they were first used in Covent Garden in 1837, but it doesn't say how the gasses were produced.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Limelight
Sounds like a dangerously flammable lighting method, but I suppose they all were then.
Today we also have a light source borrowed from nature, using sophisticated technology, that does not require electricity to produce light.
To what are you referring here?
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Light sticks. Used in emergency packs and as toys for kids and disco-ites,
Before dynamos, expensive batteries were the only option to create the power to separate the gases.
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Frank, are you aware of Edison's X-ray light bulb? It was an X-ray tube coated on the inside with calcium tungstate which fluoresces very brightly under X-rays. This was before anyone realised that X-rays are deadly.
Thomas Edison says with regard to this work: "When the X-ray came up, I made the first fluoroscope, using tungstate of calcium. I also found that this tungstate could be put into a vacuum chamber of glass and fused to the inner walls of the chamber; and if the X-ray electrodes were let into the glass chamber and a proper vacuum was attained, you could get a fluorescent lamp of several candle power. I began to make a number of these powerful lamps!
But while making these lamps, I soon found that the X-ray had affected poisonously my assistant, Mr. Dally, so that his hair fell out and his flesh commenced to ulcerate. I then concluded it would not do, and that it would not be a very popular kind of light; so I dropped it."
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;D
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One that ulcerated flesh "would not be a very popular kind of light" ! Now there's an understatement!
Some of that trial and error Frank was talking about, eh?
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so I dropped it.
Typical, makes a mess and expects someone else to clean up after him.....
;D ;D ;D
M
(Chaos theory can be proved, at my work-station). :)
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Edison's assistant died in 1903, one of the first "X-ray martyrs".
http://home.gwi.net/~dnb/read/edison/edison_xrays.htm
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Thanks for this, Alistair.
It does make one wonder on the state of technological advancement, if today's health and safety legislation had been in place....
Regards,
Marcus
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Edison's assistant Clarence Dally clearly has earned a place in history and his tragic misfortune probably saved many lives.
I am just posting to include his name here.