Light Bulbs

A light bulb is a tube with just a heater.

Some people say "fluorescent bulbs". They are tubes, not bulbs.

These are real fluorescent bulbs - they are bulb shaped, but they use mercury vapor, and a fluorescent phosphor coating just like the tubes. Sylvania developed them in time for Christmas 1946 for use as decorations. They were available in several colors. They obviously didn't sell too many.

I have three kilowatt bulbs, this one says "aircraft beacon" on the bulb, and "for picture projection" on the box. I guess it's used to show movies on the bottom of the plane as it flies over.

The other two (not pictured here), look like ordinary bulbs except that they're about 8 inches in diameter.

This is the classic Edison carbon filament bulb. The carbon filament is not visible in this picture, but it's looped very similar to the light bulb on the Electric Company title deed card.

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