Found an oddity on OBX. Any idea what it is?

[TBoneNYC]

I've spent the week swinging my ACE 350 on Corolla Beach in the Outer Banks and the pickings have been slim. But I pulled this out this morning and I'm curious as to what purpose it served. The base doesn't have threads like a lightbulb nor does it have prongs like a vacuum tube. It appears to me that they are contact plates. The overall length of the object is 3 inches and has a diameter about the size of a U.S. quarter. Anyone have any ideas? Thanks and happy swinging.

 

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[hbeaton]

Not sure but it look likes one of the vintage edison style (or maybe tubular) incandescent light bulbs that has a modified base (or in this case removed or re-purposed base) and then took the two lead in wires and attached them to the contact plates you have pictured. From the filament design it looks like non sag tungsten which has been used since the early 1900s. Not sure why they would remove the base and reattach the lead in wires to contact plates but I'm sure someone else on the forum with a more electrician oriented background can shed some light (pun!) on this one.

Neat find.

HH!
-Hunter

 

[Davers]

Cool.
But way above my Education level.
Still time to learn tho.

 

[cruiserkev]

Not 100% sure but it may be a tube from a very old television set. I saw some similar ones for sale in an old store when I was a kid that were very dusty. Being curious I asked about them, Dad said they were obsolete technology but were still around to repair old TV's. This was probably in the early 80's, I think he called them glow tubes. HH

 

[hbeaton]

Glow tube may have been a possibility if this tube was pronged as glow tubes had to be in order to be used in television sets of the period.

Doing a little more searching, a close maybe dead ringer is an Edison T6 incandescent tube bulb that would have been used in a chandelier. Length was 3 inches long with a .75 inch radius. Again, the screw type base metal may have been removed and/or this contact plates was in the bottom of each individual tube socket holder on the chandelier.

I have included a link from Amazon for modern reproduction of the T6....

http://www.amazon.com/Chandelier-Reproduction-Candelabra-Squirrel-Filament/dp/B00PE26ACG

Might be helpful.