My latest vintage lamp is an Osram 45W SOI/H the forerunner to modern SOX. This is the first SOI/H lamp I have.

The date stamp works out as December 1964. SOI lamps do not have the internal heat reflective coating on the inside of the outer tube like SOX lamps. Therefore to reduce heat losses from the arc tube, there are separate glass tubes over each leg of the arc tube.



Written on tape on the neck of the bayonet are 4/1/66 and 7 Wollaton Rd.

The Jan 1966 date could be either the fitting date or the removal date...

Now GSV lists a Wollaton Rd in Nottingham and one in Sheffield.

The Nottingham road has tubular steel columns with 1970s GEC 9536/38 lanterns. However there is this single forgotten relic with what looks like an Eleco GR550/1.

The columns have 5 figure numbers on them, whilst the Eleco is a 1970s lantern, the columns could have of course had older lanterns.

Now for Sheffield....

CU concretes with swannecks or "Liverpool" style brackets, and GEC 9480/1 lanterns.

No column numbers are visible and the majority of the steel bracket columns have Beta 79s on them, but the Z9480/81 does date from the 1960s and Sheffield isn't exactly known for the best maintenance and update regime for its lighting stock.

So if I had to put a bet on it, I would say my lamp came from Sheffield.

Now for the big question, does it still work?

Enter one of my many vintage Philips L4045 ballasts for 45/60W or 85W SO (35/55W in modern money..)

The moment of truth....



Success!



Full power.

A very nice acquisition, and a real bonus in that it works. I don't have any SOI lamps myself, but the 45w SO/H lamp I do have has a broken discharge tube.  

I would agree with you re Sheffield being the more likely location from where it came, as Sheffield has had a long association with sodium lighting in side streets, where as Nottingham used GLS and MBF many years ago.

The lantern in the Google link is a Relite Gemini.

Many thanks for the additional info Claire.

I saw one or two of these lamps on Ebay and thought you might end up with one of them!

I too agree it is more likely to have come from Sheffield... for all we know they're probably having a clear-out of old stuff that is then going onto ebay (as I recall, the listing was something like "scientific lamp" or along those lines). Good to see it works though.

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I can back that up as I used to visit Nottingham quite often in the 80s and most of the side streets then were lit with GEC Z8591s, which I loved! It was during the 80s when SOX started to appear on the side streets in Nottingham as casual replacements, however some areas already had established SOX lighting then and one of those areas was actually the Wollaton Road area which had loads of those dark-green cast-iron columns like the one in the GSV link fitted with SOX lanterns. In fact, seeing that link was a bit of a trip down memory lane for me, I'm glad to see at least one example still exists! That said, I agree that due to the age of the lamp Sheffield is the more likely candidate.



You can say that again, I've never seen so many dayburning or damaged lanterns or spalling concretes as I have in Sheffield!  

Another vintage lamp has entered the collection, this time a Philips 60W SO/H arc tube from 1961 and the outer vacuum sleeve or Dewar. This is a double walled glass tube with a vacuum between the walls – in effect a transparent Thermos flask.  This dates from October 1961 and is made by Osram.



These 2 parts are what were in effect replaced by the SOI/H lamp I posted last week - I denoting "integral" for the combined outer envelope and  vacuum tube.

The arc tube is very fragile, to allow for expansion only the lead wires connect the arc tube to the porcelain lamp holder. There is also the fragile U bend and vacuum pip where the tube is sealed. The outer Dewar is also equally fragile with another vacuum pip on the end of that.

At re-lamp time, it was just the arc tube that got replaced.

Whilst the arc tube will strike without the outer Dewar, heat losses are such that it won't get hot enough to vapourise the sodium.

The brown staining to the glass of the arc tube is caused by the sodium vapour. It wasn't until the SOX lamp came along that improved glasses were developed that were more resistant to the sodium vapour.

So, does it work? Switch on...



Full power:



Not bad for 50 years old.

Nice!! Did you leave them running for several hours?

Yes. The arc tube absorbs argon (due to the old type of glass) when in storage that may mean there is insufficient for it to restrike when it cools. By running the lamp for several hours the glass releases the gas.

The argon is added to the neon mix to reduce the striking voltage.

very nice.

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Another vintage lamp has entered the collection - a GEC Super SOX 35W lamp dating from May 1986 - so 25 years old.



Note the brass cap, the rest of the lamp is so much better made than those available today. The getter for instance is very precisely applied to the inside of the tube, rather than being "dabbed on" as it is now.

Start up.



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