here you will post when you first saw a mercury vapor lamp in action.

i remember in the summer of 2005 i was visiting my uncle for a week,i went outside to let the dog do its buisness,and on the front of his house was a fixture that emitted the most Magnetic Green Glow,i aked him what it was and he said it was a Mercury Vapor Lamp,of course back then i didnt know the technical name for it,but the fixture emitted a nice loud buzz....neat huh?

20 years ago, I was only 4 years old but still remember.

About 32 years ago when I was about 6 years old,I developed a liking for streetlights.I used to stand out by the street and watch some of the neighbourhood lights come on.

Almost 30 years ago, a couple of years before Northern CA went HPS all the way. I was around 3 when I noticed the mercs.

When I was born! My first neighborhood was filled with MV posttops.....we had even more MV back then....We still have about 60% MV around here..

Neat Stories guys,but can you make them a little more detailed? 

Neat Stories guys,but can you make them a little more detailed? 

Oh you wanna know about how I was born? details about me being born? I think you should think twice :-P

Funny jace,but i ment more Details to when you first saw a mercury vapor lamp.

Well form... it was a long time ago,but I will add that just in the old neighbourhood area I think there was both clear and coated mercs used as some started blue and others pinkish, and the fixtures I remember in use back then were: Westy OV 15,OV 14B,McGraw E.Unistyle 175.

I can't remember for sure ,but I may have also seen my first clear merc close-up.There was a large clear,may have been BT shaped lamp in the bulb cupboard from my Grandpa.I can sort of remember my dad going through items and pulled out this lamp, but my dad threw it out as there wasn't any use for it. I was too young to know any better,but probably if I asked him to save it, he wouldn't have listened to a 6 year old anyway. 

I always saw mercs everyday...there was never a day I did NOT see a single merc....they are everywhere....even today we still have a good number....

But my earliest memory when I was 2-3 years old I was living in a neighborhood built in 1985 and we had McGraw-Edision (or Crouse Hinds) traditionares in our neighborhood and I remember watching them turn off in the morning....and on at night..... They most likely had Philips-Westy or GE lamps or Sylvania BT in them.....more likely Philips-Westy BT lamps. I actually remember seeing a lot of BT lamps in use, I remember seeing some fixtures missing refractors and there would be a BT lamp inside! Mostly they were fully coated, not clear enders...

The first time I remember seeing and recognizing a mercury vapor lamp was when I was in the sixth grade (in 1984), and the middle school that I attended had mercury vapor high-bay lighting in the gym.  I loved how the light was bright and white (they were color-corrected mercs, most likely 175 watt.)  The lights collectively gave off a pretty considerable amount of hum which was audible even from just walking past the gym when the doors were open.  I first realized that they were HID (meaning I realized that they operated off a ballast & they required a warm-up period) when, during gym class, we had a power outage and the lights shut off and didn't come back on right away.  Then, one by one, each fixture restruck and glowed a deep red for a couple of minutes before reaching full brightness again.  I thought this was one of the coolest things that I had ever seen!  And it has been love ever since! 

@ lite_lover:  I used to go outside at dusk to watch the HPS street lights fire up, too!

My first touch of a merc lamp was when our family car broke down. (The crutch broke.) I was looking around the mechanic's shop when I saw a big lamp (Coated so I tried to look inside at the clear band near the base. I saw the clear "filament" (Didn't know nothing back then, remember?) and another filament surrounding it. Yes it was a Self Ballasted Merc Lamp, just dawned on me just now when I was trying to remember that day! I thought it was burned out so I asked the mechanic if I could have it, he said no since it was a good lamp. (I collected lamps back then, which is why I asked for the big lamp.) It was in 1996 or 1997.

Never knew my first hold of a merc lamp was a SBMV.

I remember when I used to live in Indiana Township a long time ago also known as Glenshaw, I used to see mercury vapor streetlights everywhere in that area I remember seeing those AE 125 Series lights showing up for the first time, this was back in early 1989 and yes they were mercury vapor. Sadly the neighborhood that I grew up in is all high pressure sodium now, Duquesne Light changed out all the streetlights to HPS in 2007. 

Lightman64: If it was from '78, how can it be a Philips? Philips wasn't even allowed to use the Philips name in the USA until the early 80s (cuz of Philco, an electronics company so Philips used the Norelco name). Additionally they bought Westinghouse's lamp division in '83 and gradually phased in the Philips name. The Lifeguard mercury lamp was a Westinghouse product. Norelco mercs were real junk.

Anyway I'd happy to throw in more details in my early merc experience. Around '79 or '80 I remember looking at street lights and NEMAs, quite intrigued by the purplish white or blue color cuz they were so different from the common incandescent bulbs in everyone's homes (this was even before CFLs were available). In '80 I remember staring up close at a merc lamp that turned out to be a 70s GE 100w A-23 lamp, the internal components were very interesting. In the NEMAs I remember seeing the full frame design in the clear BT mercs, of course they were westys. The street lights in my native town Berkeley were mostly GE. M-250s (grey and silver) on residential streets and M-400 split doors on wooden poles on major roads, and M-400As on city owned metal poles. Sometime in the early 80s, a few HPS lights (ITT 13s and 25s) were installed by PG&E, then the city took over all of the PG&E owned lights and changed everything to HPS. I remember the day the nearest M-250 near me (mid 60s silver) was being removed, it had an ED-28 /DX lamp so it was likely a GE.

That was back in 1998, I was only 4, almost 5. Near the place where my dad works, there is an old building, probably a warehouse. On the side a Powr/Bracket (looks like a Sylvania) was always dayburning and greened out. At the time, I was looking at the Powr/Brackets in my PRO hardware store catalogue. So I was always looking at it. Years after years, the light was still burning, but very dim in its last years. A few months ago the ballast door fell off  so no longer working. That's years of memories that has fallen off. However the light was still there in the last update in October 2008.