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history of extralight.info

the lamp on the cupboard

the lamp from home

the shining lamp

the shining site

extralight/about this site/ past

the lamp on the cupboard
In 2002 on a flea market I incidentally stumbled over an odd red lamp. Not exactly knowing what it was, I bought it for 50 eurocents. The lamp as well as the armature were Philips so the money seemed to be spent well anyway. At home the object turned out to be one of the first infrared lamps manufactured by Philips, an Infraphil dated 1946. When I

was a youngster (I am talking about the sixties of the previous century) my parents owned an Infraphil but that was a much heavier one with a pressed glass bulb. Apparently the lamp I just bought was its predecessor, a nice object that should have a prominent place on the cupboard. For a while at least...

the lamp from home
I do not know what your experiences are but every time I buy another car it seems to me that there are a lot more cars of the same type on the road then there were before. So when I, oh coincidence, on the next flea market noticed the heavy 'lamp from

home', I bought it in the spur of the moment for a whole two Euro! This one could join the other on the cupboard in order to complete the collection.........I thought. The dream came to an end when I discovered a third Infraphil in a shop for second hand equipment. This one was completely different from the other two and now my curiosity was awoken. How many different models

were there? And from which period do they date? A quick survey of the Internet brought in even more models and especially more manufacturers of other types of infrared lamps. But no production periods. And no background information. An inquiry at Philips brought me some more models but still no complete overview. It seemed I had to keep up a little longer.

the shining lamp
One day I bought myself an Infraphil that contained an ultraviolet lamp instead of an infrared one. The manual was missing and the Internet gave me no information so I could not figure out whether or not this was an original configuration. But, authentic or not, the
UV-lamp had entered the collection and it surely was not the last one that did. After adding a vintage sun-lamp to the collection, the time had come to have a closer look at the differences and similarities of the lamps.

Fascinating stuff from which at least I learned that infrared- and ultraviolet lamps strictly speaking do not exist. Radiators they are, not lamps.

the shining site
During my expeditions over they Internet, searching for information about my 'lamps', I discovered no more than one single site that focussed on the subject. It was hosted in the United States, it contained three lamps and it disappeared shortly after I found it. Was this a market opportunity? Even the most bizarre subjects now a days are covered by at least a hand full of sites. And collecting infrared lamps could not be that eccentric. Could it...? On the move therefore with one of those inspiring books about web design. The result of that may please you on this site. Or annoy you of course, depending on your background.....