5 Sources for Edison & Vintage Style Bulbs Perhaps it's a backlash against the new LEDs, or maybe it's just a nod to the past, but the old fashioned Edison style light bulb is a trend that shows no sign of stopping. These vintage style bulbs look great in exposed light fixtures and add an instant warm industrial vibe to any room. Jump on the trend with bulbs from one of these five sources. • Restoration Hardware Since RH has devoted most of its line to warm industrial furnishings, it's no surprise they're the first name in Edison bulbs. Starting at $7.50.• Antique Lamp Supply This site speicalizes in antique style lighting along with Edison style light bulbs. Wide selection of antique style bulbs, starting as low as $2• House of Antique Hardware In addition to Edison bulbs, you can also find "electric flame" and other "flickering" bulbs. MORE EDISON BULB POSTS ON APARTMENT THERAPY • Quick History: Edison Bulbs• Edison Bulbs, Story and Sources• Panasonic Nastolgic Clear: An Edison Style LED

(Image: Sean & Sara's Minimal Americana) Checking for the latest products... Why buy from EarthLED? 30 Day Money Back Guarantee Based in the USA since 2007PL EDGE SERIES: Horizontal & Vertical DIRect & BYPass Replacements 26W Replacements & 13-18W Replacements: DIRect lamps are compatible with electronic ballasts. BYPass lamps operate on 120-277V after ballast has been bypassed or as a plug & play lamp with existing magnetic ballastSolar Powered Lights For Flag Pole 11 Products Selected for IES 2015 Progress ReportProm Dress Stores Manhattan Ny This year GREEN CREATIVE saw a combination of LED lamps and fixtures chosen that replace incandescent, halogen and fluorescent light sourcesLounge Furniture Event Rentals

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TRACK S 8W, TRACK M 22W & TRACK L 33W: Field interchangeable lenses, high CRI, sleek design, integrated driver, SP, NF & FL beam angle options, H,J & L track type options 9.5'', 8'' & 6'' CDL: Easy installation, compatible with 120-277V circuits, superior savings and performance over CFLThe original shade, especially if it's glass, adds to the value of your antique lamp. An antique table lamp may carry significant value if it is rare or made by a sought-after designer. On the other hand, just because a lamp is old or even rare doesn't mean it is valuable -- if it is in poor condition, not functioning properly or not of good quality, it may only be worth what someone is willing to pay for it. Studying the lamp carefully to learn as much about the piece as possible will help you determine its value. Flip the lamp on its side to examine the bottom. Look for a sticker, a nameplate or a stamp bearing a maker's mark. Use a magnifying glass if you notice a stamp but can't read it well.

If the bottom of the base is covered with felt, lift the felt gently to look for signs of the lamp's maker. Study other areas of the lamp if no maker's mark is on the base. Some manufacturers, for instance, placed a metal nameplate on the socket. If the lamp is dusty, rub it gently with a dry dust cloth to clean it up a bit while you search for a maker's name. Examine the cord and plug carefully to determine whether the lamp appears safe to plug into an outlet. If so, insert a light bulb in the socket and plug the light in to test the lamp. If the cord appears frayed or wires are sticking out from the cord or plug end, do not plug it in. Note whether the cord and plug look old -- many old cords are covered in cloth, and the end of the plug is open with screws showing, rather than sealed during manufacture. This is especially true of lamps from the first half of the 1900s. If the cord does not look old, someone may have replaced the original. Examine the lamp closely for signs of damage, such as cracks and dents, or crazing if the lamp is made of ceramic material.

Look for signs of repair or repainting; these may negatively affect the lamp's value. Examine the lampshade, if intact, to determine if it is damaged. This is important especially on lamps with glass shades or painted glass shades, because the elegance of the glass gives the lamp a good deal of its value. Compare the information you've found about your lamp, such as the maker, type of lamp and its condition, with collector sites online. Note that collector prices may be inflated, but they will give you a general idea of the high end of your lamp's value. Things You Will Need Magnifying glass Dust cloth Lightbulb Tip References Emeralite: Decals, Stamps and SignaturesCollectors Weekly: Vintage Eames-Style LampsCountry Living: Bradley Hubbard Table Lamp: What Is It Worth? Photo Credits Hemera Technologies/PhotoObjects.net/Getty Images Suggest a CorrectionThe requested URL /?page=history was not found on this server.At Maialino, the Roman-style trattoria on Gramercy Park, they hover in groups of two and three.

At the Standard Grill in the meatpacking district, they snake through the cafe, restaurant and patio. And at Recipe, a rustic spot on the Upper West Side, they cluster near the entrance as an enticement.They are not the latest cliques of beautiful people, but something quite old and plain: exposed-filament bulbs, energy-guzzling reproductions of Thomas Alva Edison’s first light bulb. And despite the escalating push to go green and switch to compact fluorescents — or perhaps because of it — their antique glow has spread like a power surge.Whether in hip hangouts tapping into the popular Victorian industrial look or elegant rooms seeking to warm up their atmosphere, the bulb has become a staple for restaurant designers, in part because it emulates candlelight and flatters both dinner and diner.The filament light is now so ubiquitous that it has prompted a backlash among those who deem it overexposed — a badge of retro cool that is fast becoming the restaurant-design equivalent of the Converse All Star.

Ken Friedman, an owner of nostalgic spots like the Spotted Pig and the Rusty Knot, called the look “played out.” In a planning session last year for the Breslin, his latest take on the British gastropub, he declared, “No exposed bulbs!”And Charlie Palmer, the creator of a national hospitality empire who featured the lights in 1994 at his Flatiron district restaurant Alva said he recently dissuaded a designer from using them in a new space. “That happened 20 years ago,” he recalled saying. And yet, given all those burning amber threads dangling from cords in New York and the rest of the country, they would appear to be far from done. They remain a go-to design element, like wheatgrass in a box some years ago, for their casual air and winks at history. A lot of thought and expense go into restaurant lighting — upscale budgets easily reach six figures — because it can shape a diner’s experience almost as much as the food. Some lights favor certain colors and make others look unappetizing.

But the old-fashioned bulb, though less efficient than fluorescent or L.E.D. lamps, can build an ambience at a relatively low cost.“It creates a very warm glow, through a broad spectrum with many colors,” said Paul Bentel, whose firm Bentel & Bentel hung cascades of reproduction Tesla bulbs, similar to the original Edison, throughout Craft restaurant near Gramercy Park in 2001. “A red apple will look as good as a green pear.” The Craft connection may have been the start of the boom. The bulbs became a signature there as the owner, Tom Colicchio, spread his restaurants across the country and appeared to spawn a thousand imitators.But that might not have happened without Bob Rosenzweig, who started selling the reproductions in the 1980s out of a storefront in Flushing, Queens, inspired by a fascination with the old bulbs he bought from a salvage operation on Canal Street.Priced out of Flushing, then Long Island City and Jersey City, he moved his company, Aamsco, to Summerville, S.C., a suburb of Charleston.

There, he manufactures and distributes his own bulbs, as well as lights from other companies, including Kyp-Go, which has been replicating Edison’s original carbon filament bulb for nearly 50 years.“My neighbors think I’m in the witness protection program,” he said, with the brisk cadence of his Astoria upbringing. “They say, ‘Why in your right mind would you come down here to live on a dirt road in a small town? You’ve got to be hiding from somebody.’ ”He started selling the lights to collectors, theatrical prop houses and the Edison national park site in New Jersey, for its gift shop. Demand grew but did not really take off, Mr. Rosenzweig said, until shortly after the turn of the century, as consumers were being pushed to use compact fluorescents. Customers, particularly in San Francisco, complained that they hated how those squiggly bulbs looked in their vintage fixtures, casting an odd green tinge inside their restored Victorians. Around the same time came a boomlet of nostalgia-infused restaurants in New York, like Public, which opened in 2003 in a former Edison laboratory in NoLIta.

“You were going to do a space that was low cost — you weren’t going to throw a ton of money at it — you wanted it as honest as possible,” Kristina O’Neal, a founder of Avroko, which designed and operates Public, said of the raw, industrial look. “But you wanted something a little bit nostalgic, a little bit about old New York, a little bit comforting, but still with your own take on it.”The bulbs are now popular all over the world, in Germany, England, Australia and even Hong Kong Disneyland, Mr. Rosenzweig said. The only place he cannot seem to find a market is Miami Beach, where the prevailing look is modern. In countries with bans on incandescent lights in homes, he markets the product as a novelty bulb.“Everybody’s going green, but we’re still hot and red,” he said. “My bulbs use a lot of energy and make the air conditioning work overtime.”In the United States, the craze has spilled over into home décor, with demand high enough that even mainstream retailers like Pottery Barn, Restoration Hardware and Anthropologie sell the lights for $9 to $20 each.

It remains to be seen how all this will play out in a city where Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg has championed the compact fluorescent and restaurants crow about their connections to the earth.Mr. Bloomberg and his chief environmental aide declined to comment on the proliferation of the filament bulbs, some of which do not produce enough light to be included in the higher federal efficiency standards that begin taking effect in 2012, but can use roughly three times the energy of a standard incandescent.Although some Congressional aides say the new restrictions would not apply to the reproduction bulbs because they are not intended for general use, the Natural Resources Defense Council, which helped write the law, said it would challenge that interpretation. “It boggles the mind that in these times of economic hardship and interest in environmental sustainability that restaurant owners would choose the light bulb that uses 5 to 10 times more power than the other bulbs on the market,” Noah Horowitz, a senior scientist at the environmental group, wrote in an e-mail message.