Fellow lighting enthusiasts, here is a way to obtain rare HID and many old conventional lamps. First, you will need to have at least 2 weeks to plan a trip to Japan. Next, you should bring a large suitcase or so don't overpack (save room for lamps and stuff you may obtain). Then, you need be able to access transportation such as bus, car, or train. Next, you want to go to a dilapidated, abandoned hotel that is secluded. Inside the hotel are thousands of old conventional lamps that are hard to find anywhere else. If you don't like the suitcase exporting method, you could mail them overseas back to the location you want them. But it isn't going to be cheap. Japan has a lot of dilapidated, forgotten buildings of the 1980s era that are likely to be demolished and the lamps and fixtures are never used again and end up in the bin. I have explored many dilapidated buildings and they had a lot of unique stuff. Just watch out for squatters because they can be aggressive. My favorite building I explored was "Kinugawa Kan." located in 36.835728, 139.721111 . The district is trying to demolish it but they haven't been able to. This hotel has a lot of FPL, Circulene, Linear, and compact Fluorescent lamps. It also has some mercury vapor lamps in the large rooms. But the best dilapidated hotel to get HID lamps is located in Motegi. It is called "Motegi Green Hill Resort" It is located in 36.592970, 140.150538 . Inside the basement spare lamps room are brand-new HID lamps of many kinds. I was only able to get an FDL lamp because my backpack was too full, unfortunately. Otherwise, I would have grabbed as much mercury lamps I could take. Anyways, just be careful about exporting mercury lamps in suitcases as they might not allow it due to Minamata Convention. However, it says you can take glass lightbulbs and CFLs on a plane so it might actually work with HID. Any thoughts?
