Later Samples of Carbon Filaments

It was mentioned elsewhere (Petzinger Filament Collection) that GE still manufactured carbon filaments as late as 1945. The writer had access to the remains of that production in the early 1960s when the filaments were to be discarded. Although there was no indication of the number of filaments in the remains, the number certainly was in the millions. Before the filaments were discarded the writer removed some representative types to keep for posterity. Some of the larger boxes (2-1/8 x 4-3/8 x 8-1/2 inches) had at least 20,000 filaments in them. A sampling of some of these filaments is shown in the following photo.

In 1959 carbon lamps were manufactured by the North American Electric Lamp Company of St. Louis, MO. They did not manufacture the filaments, however, but purchased them from F.J.& J. Planchon, 78 Rue Lacondamine, Paris, France. A sampling of filaments obtained in 1959 from Planchon is shown below.