Posted on 02/18/2006 12:07:15 PM PST by wagglebee
CRESTWOOD, Ky. Feb 17, 2006 (AP)— It was hidden in a shoe box inside a drawer, but the burglar who stumbled upon it must have thought the ancient-looking light bulb was worth something.
The light bulb's owner said it was probably made by Thomas Edison, who is credited with developing a long-burning filament that made the incandescent light bulb marketable.
Helena Grimes, owner of the Waldeck Mansion that was burglarized this week, said the light bulb had belonged to her great-great-uncle. Grimes said she was told by a Smithsonian Institution expert that there are likely only 12 others like it.
Edison lived and worked in Louisville as a telegraph operator in 1866 and 1867. The Thomas Edison House in Louisville has appraised the bulb.
"We're not interested in selling it, so it doesn't matter how much it's worth," Grimes said.
Instead, Grimes and her husband, David Gleason, are offering a reward for information leading to the return of the light bulb and some silver trays and trophies that were also swiped during the burglary.
The bulb has a wooden base and is about the size of a peach, with glass tapering to a point on the top, Grimes said. Though it has an electrical cord, it shouldn't be plugged into an electrical outlet, she said.
Should be on eBay soon.
Yeah - mine burn out after three weeks!
I'm amazed she didn't have it in a safe.
How many dollars does it take to exchange a light bulb?
These lightbulbs are still being burned at the Menlo Park laboratory, and still have not burned out!
A little off topic, but wouldn't the late 19th century have been the perfect time to be an inventor? You didn't need an advanced degree and a particle accelerator. All you needed were tinkering skills and some basic handtools. The science and technology of that era were perfectly suited to a creative guy sitting at his workshop bench. The Wright brothers for instance: tinkerers. Their world-changing invention was in a bicycle workshop of wood and canvas.
according to a famous (and probably apocryphal) quote of Edisons, there should be thousands of "Edison light bulbs" littering the landscape. After all, he "learned thousands of ways how NOT to make a light bulb... (he) only has to be right once."
This article doesn't say it was a working Edison light bulb. His "research lab" approach to invention was to have assistants (minor folk like Nikola Tesla) try every possible combination of materials until they found one that worked. This industrial approach to invention is really Edison's only true invention. He never truly came up with original ideas, but he did come up with the way to make practical ideas that others had conceived.
And that was genius.
Not necessarily honest, but still genius. The same can be said of Galileo. Making things practical that other dreamers dream of is what gave 20th century America its position in the world.
***Yeah - mine burn out after three weeks!***
And a whole bunch of them at the same time. I wonder if that's an electrical surge that causes that.
And be BTTT'ed;)
This story has a certain aroma to it. Chances are it is a replica bulb that was produced in some quantity in 1929 for the 50th anniversary of the light bulb. A lot of people have been fooled by one of these bulbs, including the Antiques Roadshow. This may even be an insurance scam.
http://www.edisonian.com/p008b006.htm
Why was this in a house and not in a museum? Very odd.
How true. It also helped there was no government bureaucracy regulating every little thing. No need for the Wright Bros. to secure a permit. No liability insurance for the flight tests, etc.
The only hope today for an inventor today is to invent something so totally new, such as the internet, that government hasn't written rules for throttling it.
LOL! you should polish it up and see what you can get for it. :)
No dim bulb, that guy...
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