The radical shift of temperatures, humidity and wind speeds that we call St. Louis weather afforded me the opportunity to put up outside Christmas lights this past weekend. With temperatures in the '70's, (there was snow on the ground last Thursday), it almost didn't feel right, but by the time I'd completed the project, the temperature had dropped 40 degrees. This morning I scraped a good 1/8 inch of ice off of my windshield.
In the box of lights were these vintage replacement bulbs (or lamps as they call them) I found at a garage sale this summer. I love how something even this simple was given such great graphics back then.
Most of the bulbs were made in Japan which date these to the 50's or 60's. Also, most were purchased at what appears to be "Mark, Bradley". I couldn't find any information on this strangely comma'ed store name. I would guess it was a local drug or dime store.
I remember how those smelled when they got really hot for some reason. But boy did those C9's looks great.
ReplyDeleteYeah, the C9 and smaller C7 bulbs are the Christmas bulbs of my childhood too. I still put the C9's on my house, but use LED for our live indoor tree. The C6's dry a tree out in a hurry.
Deleteman, these box graphics are great -- especially the sleigh, and the santa in the last picture. and they are in amazing shape! i have a couple in a drawer, and they are nowhere near as nice.
ReplyDeleteThey are in great shape. I bought a grocery bag full of these and it looked like they had stocked up on them and never used them. I just noticed a lot of the price stickers have numbers (not the price) in the upper left corner like 65 and 67. I wonder if those are years.
DeleteBeautiful just as art themselves.
ReplyDeleteYou're right, Joe. I thought about incorporating some of these into a holiday montage display piece.
DeleteVery fun and they really take me back to my early childhood!
ReplyDelete