Amazing to come across on of these at a boot sale!, quality lamp

Now all I need to do is to organise my shed, get one of my 18W SOX ballast with the ignitor and a ceramic B22 lampholder that is somewhere in the shed and get it up and running!!!! I'll make sure to position it horizonally and not base down

That's a very nice lamp to have found at a car boot sale! Just to be on the safe side, I would test an unimportant fluorescent tube on the ballast before trying out this lamp. It would be a shame to have it destroyed if the ballast was faulty.

@Andy: Yes first I'll test the Philips 18W ballast I got from the 2nd hand shop in Newbury in the 18W Ring fluorescent fixture, stick a Philips TLD super 80 modern made Polish tube (I got loads of them) - I would use a Chinese made 18W tube if I had one though. Still remember how lucky I was when the 36W tridonic magnetic ballast shorted out of the blue and the Homebase T12 tube was still intact

That's a nice find! A GEC Supersox in disguise.

@Slyspark: Thank you the more I look at it, I realise how this is no ordinary SOX lamp right there

Brilliant score delighted you got it, somebody else none the wiser at carboot could have plugged it straight into mains back home

Very nice indeed! Will be awesome to see this lit up I wonder if this will also strike without a ignitor in circuit too?

@Patrick: Thanks so much yes that could have been a possibility if I hadn't attended it now is stored safely in my shed @Beta 5: I could try to temporarily disconnect the wires from the tubeholders of my Ring 18w fluorescent and wire up a B22 socket - see if that 18W SOX fires up without the ignitor

In my opinion, the GEC (and later Osram) Supersox are the best SOX lamps ever made in terms of quality and lifespan. Back when I was younger and they installed a new road in my town, which cut through a number of other side roads, resulting in quite a few columns being removed, it was GEC Supersox I was saving from the columns ripped out. Pity that I don't have any of those originally saved lamps any longer. I do have some NOS 35w, which I'll use myself, rather than on jobs.

Look after this one you have. It's rare to find an 18w Supersox, rarer still one that's Wotan branded. It's unlikely you'll ever find another one. I'd keep this safe and find a more generic Philips, etc if you actually want to put one into service.

@Slyspark: My next plan is to get more SOX lamps any size but 18W, 35w and 55W are my ones I'd like to get first. Sure I wouldn't say no to any SOX lamp even if it was a generic Chinese made one (sort you find on Aliexpress etc) because with these you can use them as ballast testers before you use the rare/genuine type. Mostly I am after the generic Philips ones but any SOX lamps I'll take whatever I find. Regarding this one I have, I'll only light it up to show it here and then it will be back into the collection. It came with a thick beige wrapper

Beautiful old lamp

@Danny: It sure is, back on the meetup that is the lamp I answered to your question saying if I had a 35W SOX lamp, thanks for giving me the 35W SOX