Antique Light Sockets - Research - Sales

HOME

Back to the main home page and front menu

Learning Tools And Research Material

User Forums
Post pictures of your items and ask questions or just learn from reading the posts from others

Ad Database
View or upload ads from antique 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.

Group Patent Download
Download the first pages of an entire day of patents
And then view them quickly on your local computer

Group Patent Download Database - Download only patent first pages for an entire day.
Sometimes you only have a patent date. Normally to search a day, there is from 700 to 1000 patents per day at the patent office depending on the year. To locate your patent, you would need to search through the entire day. You can try google or another search first, but to search looking at the patent picture and then going back and choosing the next in the list can take several steps and clicks of the mouse button. In my past experience this can it can take up to a few hours to find a patent using this method. This is the reason for these archives. What use to take me a few hours, now only takes me about 10 or 15 minutes.

How it Works: - I have downloaded from the patent office ONLY the first page (the page with the patent title and picture) for every day that the patent office was open from 1870 until 1930. When you enter this page you get a simple date field. You can enter (for example) just the year 1895 and click on the submit button. You will get a page back with all of the patent dates for 1895. Simply find your date in the list and save the archive to your computer. You can also type in the year and month; or the year, month and day, but in most cases the year or year and month would be just fine. Now that you have the file on your local computer, you can use your image view program to simply click next, and next, etc. until you find your patent. There is no waiting for the web, or patent office database, just simple image views like you were looking at pictures in a directory on your computer. I use a third party viewer called VuePrint which allows me to simply hit my space bar to view the next image or the backspace key on my keyboard to go back to the last image. It also lets me stretch the image across two monitors as I use a multiple monitor system with 3 21inch and 4 different 22 inch screens. I just stretch it up and down over two monitors (click here (broken link) to see what i am talking about) and the view is great as I hit my space bar from one picture to the next. In most cases I can find the patent in only a few minutes depending on if I see something else interesting and stop for a minute to look at it. After you download the archive to your desktop, open it and then copy the folder to your desktop or another folder. Now open the folder and open the first image. Now you can just click next, next, and next until you find your patent. Once you find your patent, you can now use the patent number to open or download the full patent using an online utility.