So I was looking through some vintage Princess Auto catalogues and found out that Princess Auto sold GE 175w MV Crimefighters that were government surplus from 1976 to 1992.

Fall 1976 (page 27)
Spring 1985 (page 88)
Fall 1992 (page 104)

I guess this explains why there are GE Crimefighters scattered around Canada on private properties. Princess Auto is odd store, I guess it's like a combination of Harbor Freight and a surplus retailer. They must have have a ton of these Crimefighters to have sold them for so many years too.

In a catalogue from 1972, they sold 100w OV-10s and 400w clamshells along with a 300w incandescent mini gumball that looks like a Powerlite model.

Link (page 85) 

I remember a few years ago some guy was selling NOS crimefighters on Kijiji for extra cheap. In the description I specifically remember the guy saying he bought them from Princess Auto at one point which I thought was bizzare, but this confirms it. I wish they did big stuff like this nowadays!

Yeah, I remember seeing that ad too and I was puzzled at the fact the he mentioned buying them from Princess Auto. I think the seller was based out in Whitby. Anyway I got mine from an antique store but I suspect it was originally part of the lot sold at Princess Auto. It had the same clear Sylvania BT25 175w lamp as the ones in that ad.

Yeah I wish Princess Auto would sell stuff like this again but they had HID stuff in the recent past. They were the last retailer in my area to sell 175w mercury vapour yardlights and for a brief while had some 400w MH lowbays for sale.

There is an old Westinghouse Silverliner with no photocell and a 250W mercury vapour lamp on a private property here and the owner told me he purchased it at Princess Auto in the late 1970's or early 1980's. I believe it has its original lamp because it is not used every night. Still nice and bright, though.

Yeah, some of the catalogues mentioned other wattage mercury luminaires available too. Usually 250w and 400w but in some years even 1000w too. They also sold replacement lamps and a pole mounted PC socket as extras.

The pictures of the other luminaires made it hard to identify the exact model though.

My Crimefighter still has the original Sylvania 175w MV lamp from the 1960s. Still very bright and with a clear arctube too.

I'd buy some of them for those prices !! $29 for a new surplus OV-15 ?? 

I'd buy some of them for those prices !! $29 for a new surplus OV-15 ?? 

Not so fast haha... Accounting for inflation would give these insane prices:

100w Clamshell: $29.95 -> $192.38
400w Clamshell: $74.00 -> $475.33
300w Gumball: $12.95 -> $83.18

...not sure if throwing it in the inflation calculator is a direct proportional value to todays money, but still it gives an idea as to what the investment must've been for towns back then!

I guess I'll have to dig out my time machine then !!

Yeah one of those 175w MV Crimefighters cost quite a bit back in 1976 adjusted for inflation. Around $204.79 in modern day Canada. You can probably get 2-3 modern HID cobraheads for that amount of money.

Surprisingly these prices are cheap compared to what GE asked for a new one. A similar MV luminaire, say a GE M-250R1, 175w MV 120/240v without a PC socket costs $181 ea ($166 for a order of 12+ units) in 1985. $54.99 for one (~$41 USD using a exchange rate from 1985) must have been a bargain. 

They also included a Sylvania H39-22KB lamp, and the luminaires were dated 12/67 so they were probably NOS. In comparision I got mine for $65 back in 2015 used at a antique store.

This does make me wonder if there were any stores in the US that sold "real" streetlights to a public as yard/farm lights.

Too bad I wasn’t alive when retailers sold this kind of stuff. If I could time travel there would be plenty of things I would buy. But on the other hand, I don’t know of any US retailers, let alone big box stores with catalogs that sold legit street light fixtures.

Not sure if it qualifies as a real street light but some stores did sell GE 201SA mercury NEMA heads. GE actually had "merchandiser packs" of these that included everything needed: fixture, photocell, lamp and arm. Why I don't know if it qualifies, is while these looked like a typical NEMA with clip on reflector, they had a cover over the ballast and used lead wires rather than terminal screw connections.

I guess you could say Grainger does also, as I remember seeing AEL 125 cobras on their site awhile ago. Does that count as a store though, as these are likely special order.

Now I wonder if stores like Canadian Tire, or Home Depot sold stuff like this back in the day. I know Home Depot once sold Cooper highbays back in the early 2000s. Canadian Tire had some neat stuff too like S56 HPS lamps and lumiline lamps.

I heard about stores selling "real" NEMA heads before UL regulations and cost cutting meant they started stocking yardlights instead of NEMA unit packs.

I’d be curious as well, I’ve heard of the consumer version of the GE 201-SA but I’m unsure on where they were sold though.

I know my Home Depot did sell legit Lithonia wall packs that were expensive until recently (2020) when they got put on clearance, but other than that the rest is just rebadged off-brand products.

I remember Home Hardware in Canada sold real NEMA lights in mercury vapour, with a 12" arm, PC and lamp included for 99.99 $. Replacement lamps were 19.99 $. That was back in the early 1990's.

I had it figured Harbor Freight stores were the USA version of Princess Auto.