Antique Light Sockets - Research - Sales

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Learning Tools And Research Material

User Forums
Post pictures of your items and ask questions or just learn from reading the posts from others
Catalog Database
View pictures or track old items through antique and vintage catalogs
Ad Database
View or upload ads from antique magazines
Picture Database
View or upload pictures from antique magazines
Antique Catalogs
Buy sell or trade copies or original trade catalogs and magazines.
Bulb & Socket Bases
View images of the most well known bulb and socket bases

Patent Utilities
Patent Linker
Lets You Pull Up Any Patent PDF File Or Link One Directly To Your Web Page
Group Patent Dbase
Lets You Download The First Page Patent Picture Of Every Patent On A Single Day To View On Quickly Your Local Computer
MultiView Search
Lets You Search For Patents Using Advanced Methods And Provides Hyper Links To The Patent Office And Google Patents

For Sale & Misc Area

I have not had much time to get many items in the forsale area below. Please keep checking back as I will start adding more items soon.

Items For Sale

Cord Balls & Adjusters
NEW - My cord pendant adjuster project, as well as a good history about them.

Socket Dating Methods

Switch Material
Electrical Code
Mica Insulation
CP or WATTS Marks
Socket Bead/Rib/UNO
Catalogs & Ads
Patents
Pull Chains / Finials

Socket & Electrical Manufacturer's Items And Their History

GECO Sockets
NEW - This section will allow you to date and learn how to tell one GECO socket from the other.
Hubbell
This is where this site started from. Since this page was done, there has been much more Hubbell history and information found which will make for a complete redesign of this page and section in the soon future.
Hubbell Patents
This section has some early patent research on Hubbell. It is mostly complete with only a few missing patents which will be added in when this section is re done into the new format
Wheeler Reflector Co.
NEW - A history of The Wheeler Reflector Company and tips on how to tell if mirror has been replaced on a shade
Other Manufacturers
This section is a lot of incomplete work and will be updated shortly. For now it serves to give you some extended information on some companies, but will be a much better tool when it is complete
NEC
This section is everything you ever wanted to know about the National Electrical Code (NEC) but had no one to ask. Downloads of old NEC's, meetings and much extended information is provided.

Identify PRE-1900 Sockets

GECO Sockets

More companies will be added to this list in the near future. We will also be adding a new list of post 1900 sockets and items.
Bergmann & Co.
Brush Electric Co.
Bryant Electric Co.
Crown Elect MFG Co.
EE&S
Holmes & Gale (HG)
Perkins
Thomson-Houston
Westinghouse

Tutorial And Early Lighting History

The Lighting Time Table

To read the entire tutorial, you can just click on the first link and then continue to the next section at the bottom of each page. Or, you can select links below of interest to you.

PRE 1900 SECTION

Overcoming Obstacles
About Early Electric Lighting, Generators, Arc Lamps, The First Edison Socket, Menlo Park, etc.
The First Fixtures
About The Start Of The First Incandescent Lighting Fixtures
Light Reflection
About Early Light Bulbs And Candle Power vs. WATTS
Edison-Bergmann
About Sigmund Bergmann And The Start Of Bergmann And Company Lighting Fixtures
Lighting Break Down
A Quick Break Down Of Different Lighting Time Periods
Styles 1881 to 1884
Bergmann Fixtures And Styles
Other Pre-1888 Styles
About Early Companies That Sold Lighting Systems And The Fixtures That They Sold With Their Lighting Systems
The U.S. Elect. Co.
The United States Electric Company History And Early Items
The Brush Elect. Co.
The Brush Electric Company History And Early Items
Thomson-Houston
The Thomson-Houston Electric Company History And Early Items
Westinghouse
About The Westinghouse Manufacturing Company History And Early Mergers
Mid 1880's Styles
About The Start Of Electrical Supply Houses and how new lighting styles came about
Pre 1900 Sockets
About Early Light Sockets And How To Tell The Difference
1887 New Items
1888 New Items
1890 New Items
1891 New Items
1892 New Items
1893 New Items
1894-1896 Items
1897 New Items
1898 New Items
1899 New Items
Above are catalog items sold in different years. There is no space to duplicate items, so only new and unique items from each year are shown. You would need to view the catalogs for yourself to be complete as I am only highlighting items. You can view catalogs here.

EXTRA INFO
Victor Shade Holder
About The Victor Shade Holder, Atwood And The Standard Holder

I.P. Frink 1899 Items
About Frink & Wheeler
New Wheeler Inverted
Three Links About Mirror Reflector Manufacturers And Their Items And History.
Wheeler Reflector Co.
NEW - A history of The Wheeler Reflector Company and tips on how to tell if mirror has been replaced on a shade

Early Desk Lamps
Some Help In Telling Them Apart

Vitrite And Luminoid
About The Vitrite Holders And Early Vitrite History

Brush-Swan Holder
About Brush-Swan Shade Holders

Cord Balls
My cord pendant adjuster project, as well as a good history about them.

POST 1900 SECTION

About 1900 Styles
This section covers a basic into into the 1900 section covering information about the 1899 transition, electrical code changes, lighting influence, sharing and licensing of patents and then into the new section of electrical specialty manufacturers,

Electrical Specialty Manufacturers
Harvey Hubbell
This section covers some early history periods of pre Hubbell-Grier, Hubbell-Grier, Harvey Hubbell, Hubbell Company. It also covers a number of items that helped change lighting styles,

Benjamin
This section covers some early history periods for the Benjamin Electric MFG. Co, as well as a small section on Dale and The Federal Electric Company
Dale
Federal Electric

This post 1900 section continues to be under current construction

Please Check Back.

The Multiview Patent Search Utility
Brings up all patent information on one screen
Also provides off site hyper links to the U.S. Patent Office and Google Patents

This utility is still under construction as it is still compiling. We expect it to take another month before it is ready.
This utility will allow you to search patents by date range, single date, patent number, patent title (up to three title wild cards), Inventor, assignee, issue date, class or sub class id. It has different options of match exact, match all, match one, search extra. When you use the search option, for example lets say that you are looking for shade holders. A common class id for shade holders is 362/434, but you do not know that yet. Just type in "shade holder" in the title search. The database will bring back a list of holders from 1870 to 1930. Find the type of holders that you are looking for. Next to each result will be the patent number, date, inventor, title, class id, inventor and assignee. Now you can see that the type of holders that you are looking for are maybe found in two different classes 362/434 and 362/437. While you can still do different types of searches. If you search by class ids, you will only come back with the types of items that you are looking for. This is a good way to research seeing that many times you do not know the name of the company or inventor that made the item that you are looking for.

To test the "Search Extra" setting and find mis spellings, try one search result with and then without the box checked. When you check the box, you should get more results to your search and see the mis spelled items in your results.

There are some advantages with using our search utility over or at least along with others.
Firstly with the Google search utility, it has many mistakes in spelling in both titles, inventor, assignee, etc. So if you are searching there you can miss many patents. With our search always be sure to put a check in the search extra box. This will search some extended information that we have cataloged from other plain text extractions. Nine times out of ten, if the title, inventor or assignee area had errors, our extended info had this information included, but without the same error. So this makes for a more reliable search when using this option.

Multiview Results - When you click on one of your results, you will see the basic patent information such as the title, patent number, date, Inventor, assignee, issued date, filed date, class id's, etc. BUT you will also have options and links to do one or more of the following: Go directly to the link in Google for the patent; Go directly to the U.S. Patent office to view the tiff image files for the patent; View the PDF patent file on our server; or to view the plain text file for the patent on our server.