Vintage industrial lighting is in our DNA and we are always on the lookout for gems. Ironically, given their age – vintage industrial lights typically date circa the 1950s – they will never go out of fashion. And this type of reclaimed lighting can work with a number of interiors styles: mid-century, industrial (natch!), farmhouse, urban modern, shabby chic…
The only mild downside, for us, is that the reclaimed nature of these lights means they can require many hours of refurbishment. Remember our blog post about the grey Benjamin vintage pendant lights, we sourced from the Essex factory? We’re still working on some of those, half a year later!
This post gives you a heads-up on some of the items we’ve bought in, but are stripping, cleaning, polishing and renovating, so are not yet on the site. Working from left to right in the gallery…
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Vintage GEC Inspection Lamp
A rare and very eye-catching vintage inspection lamp, made by the UK’s General Electric Company.
Probably used on board a ship it features a carrying handle which can be pushed down so the light sits upright and this could be used as a desk lamp. Otherwise it could be hanged from the handle as a unique pendant light.
A glass jar and steel cage protect the lightbulb, and fins on the mounting serve to dissipate heat from the bulb, protecting the original user’s hand.
We’ve polished and refurbished this, and wired it with vintage-style flex and a plug (see main image) – and it looks amazing! Soon to be for sale on our site, you can currently view this vintage reclaimed lamp in our Fowey shop at 9 South Street, priced £195 (inc. VAT).
Vintage Naval GEC Marker Buoy
You don’t see many of these come on the market.
It’s an ex-Ministry of Defence marker light and would have been thrown overboard to illuminate, for instance, a landing area or personnel overboard.
The buoy section features a large GEC Made in England logo and a steel half-loop at the top (which would have been the bottom!) allows this to be hanged as a most innovative pendant light.
This will shortly be viewable in our Fowey shop and up on the site, also priced £195 (inc. VAT)
Giant Green Vintage Thorlux Pendant Lights
Back in more familiar territory now, with the vintage ceiling lights.
We sourced a run of 10 of these, in very good condition, but two have already been sold from the shop.
They’re 18-inch diameter, which we call our giant size, and taller than the average reclaimed pendant light of that aperture. The cast-iron galleries have come up particularly well during refurbishing.
If you want bold vintage, these are your lights. Cost £285 each (inc. VAT)
Vintage Brown Benjamin Benflux Ceiling Light
We have just one of these, sadly, in very rare brown, dating from the 1930s, with its green and silver foil label still intact. We’ve cleaned it up and wired it using an original vintage GEC fitting and brown vintage-style three-core flex.
Price: £165 (inc.VAT)
1950s Revo Well Glass Hanging Lamp
Vintage industrial lighting at its very finest – we have a special soft spot for Revo – these cast iron well glass lights came to us filthy and painted.
We dipped them ourselves to strip the paint and polished in the workshop, to reveal this exquisite – and large – pendant light.
We’ve already sold a couple but have three remaining. Priced at £235 each (inc.VAT).
If you’d like to know more about any of the lights featured in this blog, please call Nick on 01726 833089 or email us here. Next week, I’ll focus on our vintage strip lights that have been weeks in our workshop and are just ready for their reveal.
