Vintage Lighting What are these?

derekleffew

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olde_timey_spotlights.jpg


Genarco? Brenkert? Hall & Connolly?
 
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I don't know, but can I have one?
 
Old?


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That's a 30 dozen egg box.
 
The rear portion looks suspiciously like a movie projector lamp house. My guess is they are from a company that was into both projectors and spots. Strong fits that bill, but their followspots were more elegant. Maybe an early entry into the market?
 
Very cool indeed! Looks like native DC units judging by the large gauge asbestos whips and the knife switch cutoff on the base. Faint bell ringing on the looks, as in I have seen their type before, but I can't place it. 1930's , 40's maybe.... Would love to know more, and why they look like they are on top of shelving that looks to be the type used at Home Depot, complete with the price markers.
 
Some images turned up in a search.
First, a simplex projector with a Peerless lightsource.
simplexwithPeerlesslamphouse.jpg

Via JimonLight, a couple of catalog pages from Hall and Connolly:
HandC_Spot1.jpg

HandC_Spot3.jpg

The base and switch placement are a close match.
 
For several years I worked for a company which provided W.W.II surplus searchlights for advertising purposes. I can't remember how many "New Car Premiers" I ran lights for back in the '60s. Gas-powered generators running 120A arcs in 60" reflectors. We'd get about 1-1/4 hr. on a trim, then a fast re-trim, strike it up and keep going until closing. I also worked in an outdoor summer theatre running musicals. We had a Strong Trouper as the primary light, but one year a second arc one was needed. It fell to me to ressurect a Halll & Connoly lamp--I guess about a 150A lamp-- and make it work after many years of disuse. Fun job. The H&C was a nice lamp, threw a good light, but was much more of a pain to run than the Trouper.
 
For several years I worked for a company which provided W.W.II surplus searchlights for advertising purposes. I can't remember how many "New Car Premiers" I ran lights for back in the '60s. Gas-powered generators running 120A arcs in 60" reflectors. We'd get about 1-1/4 hr. on a trim, then a fast re-trim, strike it up and keep going until closing. I also worked in an outdoor summer theatre running musicals. We had a Strong Trouper as the primary light, but one year a second arc one was needed. It fell to me to ressurect a Halll & Connoly lamp--I guess about a 150A lamp-- and make it work after many years of disuse. Fun job. The H&C was a nice lamp, threw a good light, but was much more of a pain to run than the Trouper.

I always wanted to get my hands on one of those WWII searchlights.
 
I’ll bite in fascinating.
Note how close to the gate the hood (snow hat) over a perspective lamp mounting is to the gate in relation to where the reflector should be in further away. And a stock PC or arc light body is next to a science experiment like lens train assembly added to it with gel frame boomarang assembly between what might be final lenses and gate. Very interesting. Modern and not in a good supporting frame in front of the body of the light.
The crank handle in front of the boomarang, nice and interesting..
Taken apart science experiment from body of light, it’s two separate elements. Body of fixture I think incandescent up to 3Kw incandescent lamp light. Style is from the 50's given the photo - but not enough info in showing.
Unless the not enough photos’s indicate auto focusing of a carbon arc lamp, not enough - or any levers off the rear to be this. Don’t know what’s going on in the rear of the fixture, if a fan assembly not well designed or what’s in photo. Nor what’s going on below the fixture in understanding its rigging or levers.
The motors on the floor... are these auto-focusing some type of lights?
That said:
-Genarco, Inc., 97-04 Sutphin Blvd., Jamaica 35, New York. Metro carbon arc lights. 1954 Listed.
And no listings I know of for Connolly.
 
My take on the motor on the back is a big old feed motor. Large, but slow rotation. Peerless lamphouses had the carbon feed controls on the operator side as compared to the back. (see top pic in post #10) The one knob on the back would be a rheostat for the carbon feed motor, much like it is on the Super-trouper on the left. Also, compare the size of the feed motor on the super to the unknown units, about the same size although on the super it was integrated into the rear casting. Odd that one has the observation glass in the center, and the other is offset to the front, especially since the smoke stacks are in the same place.
 
re: pic #10. The H&C lamp had the positive carbon (therefore the crater on the end of the pos which created most of the light) facing the lens system. The pos carbon burns much faster and is much bigger than the neg in a DC lamp. The space in the rear of the lamphouse was to accommodate the long pos carbon and its feed & rotation mechanism. I believe that the Peerless lamphouse on the Simplex projector used an ellipsoidal reflector, and that the positive was at the front of the lamphouse with the crater facing the reflector in the rear.
 
I'll retract my obsrvations - well done and cool more learned, thanks.
 

it was so long ago that i can’t say for sure that these are exactly what we operated, but when i worked at radio city music hall from around 1973 - 1975, one of my jobs (as well as training on the original lighting console) was as a front light operator. (another was operating a follow spot as a sidelight on the side bridges—there were bridges about 35’ above the stage on the OP (SL) and P (SR) sides). an aside: one time the assistant carpenter fell from a side bridge, landed on a bunch of cardboard boxes and ‘walked’ away. (not many theaters use that nomenclature: Prompt and Opposite Prompt, but the genesis is that the stage managers called from the most convenient side and their location was a reference for many other functions. i think the Met Opera does the same thing).

anyway, the point is that there were a few operators 2, maybe 4, who operated TWO front lights at a time. i was one of those. that’s why we needed lamps with controls on both sides. one would be mainly flood and cover, and the other mainly solo work. it took time to learn how to do it, but it could be, and was, done. we had our own crew room up in the ceiling and never went down to the stage. ever. same with the flymen.

those were the last years before someone (disney?) took over operations and the rest is history.

we did three shows a day, each show followed by a movie. or was it 4 and 5? can’t remember. RCMH had a hospital which was closed by the time i worked there with 8 beds and a full time medical staff.

one more thing: the story was that after RCMH was opened, the Navy Department set up offices to replicate the stage lift system for use as elevators on newly built aircraft carriers.
 

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