Philips 125W HPW Woods Glass Blacklight Mercury vapour lamp

Thanks to a kind tip off from a fellow lighting collector I was able to find and add this 1967 Philips 125W Blacklight Mercury vapour lamp to my collection :)

I am quite pleased to get a nice NOS example of a High pressure Mercury blacklight in the collection :)

I have had (may still have but need to double check) a British 125W (and a 175W self ballasted version) Mercury woods glass lamp in the collection but by the time they had found their way to me they had clearly been somewhat used and the internal heat of the lamp had caused the internal frame to warp on those lamps over time and the arc tube very much bent off centre! (its something i have seen on a good number of 125W and 175W self ballasted MBW lamps now sadly)

this being a NOS example thankfully does not have that issue :) and I am pleased to get this Philips example, which despite being from May 1967 already has an elliptical bulb,

curiously British companies Thorn and GEC, continued using GLS shaped bulbs for their MBW mercury blacklight lamps despite otherwise long since switching to elliptical bulbs for the rest of their mercury lineup (apart from GEC who did continue making Pearl GLS shaped MB/U lamps into the late 1970's if not later, for replacement purposes)

so it makes for an interesting comparison between those, also worth noting all the airlines in the arc tube from this relatively early lamp :)

I do have to say I prefer the GLS shaped lamps of course!

although a long time ago I had a late 1970's Thorn GLS shaped 125W MBW lamp where thorn clearly just used the standard 125W MBF frame assembly from their elliptical lamps, so the arc tube was mounted far too low down in the bulb and it looked quite naff to me!

and finally of course Woods glass lamps are always lots of fun on how they make everything fluorescent in the room glow brightly :