Author Topic: How do you fund your hobby?  (Read 2890 times)
WorldwideHIDCollectorUSA
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Re: How do you fund your hobby? « Reply #15 on: April 06, 2023, 07:13:54 PM » Author: WorldwideHIDCollectorUSA
In the first half of 2022, I used to use a large portion of my money to spend on lighting, but now that I am in college, I have been dealing with some overspending problems when it came to lighting. As of now, there are so many lighting products that are on my wanted list that I still have not obtained yet.
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Re: How do you fund your hobby? « Reply #16 on: April 07, 2023, 03:52:16 PM » Author: James
It’s quite a dilemma, I don’t know how I would set a lighting budget if I was younger or just starting out now and eager to expand as quickly as possible.  Perhaps I was fortunate to begin 40 years ago, and the peak of my collecting was in the 1990s or early 2000s when lamps used to be cheap.  And like a few others I now have a comprehensive selection (and no more space!) so I am not really expanding very much.

The one thing I did learn long ago though, is the art of patience.  Sometimes an interesting or rare lamp does show up which really interests me, but I refuse to pay more than what I consider to be a fair price.  If you buy as soon as you see something then you can end up paying huge prices.  Especially if they are listed on Ebay where many others see them and there is a lot of competition which drives up the price.  You might think such events are once in a lifetime occurrences and you have to rush to buy now, but thanks to the ever-growing reach of the internet I am firmly of the opinion that the rate of sale of historic lighting products is increasing every year.  Long ago old lamps were simply thrown out, but these days they seem to turn up for sale with ever-increasing frequency.  So it pays to wait to find another example at a more reasonable price.

My final tip is to not let external events determine when you buy a new lamp.  In other words, don’t just follow Ebay and randomly buy things as soon as they show up at their usual extortionate prices.  Instead, study the old catalogues and make a shortlist of items you really want to find.  Then run highly focussed online searches by their precise description / order codes.  Almost nobody searches for old lighting equipment by their codes.  But they are out there - and due to their obscurity they are often on clearance lists at wholesalers and distributors for far better prices than under generic descriptions like “old light bulb” which seem to draw far more interest on Ebay.  Via this technique I can easily find some old lamps listed online for €5 which people regularly seem to fight over for €50 or more on Ebay!  But it takes a lot more time, perseverance and patience.  If you have that as well as the interest to first study the old literature, a great deal of money can be saved.
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Rommie
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Re: How do you fund your hobby? « Reply #17 on: April 07, 2023, 04:03:32 PM » Author: Rommie
Always interesting to read your comments, James. As I said earlier, we've mostly completed our 'bucket list' now, so we only really spend money on really old and/or rare items, such as the Bumix lamp we just acquired from Andy (Photonicinduction). That one cost some serious money, but it's only fair to cover the costs of what someone paid themselves, I'm not about to see Andy or anyone else out of pocket. We're fortunate at the moment that we have (or rather had  :lol:) the money available, that wasn't always the case.

So yes, patience is a virtue, sadly I have not been blessed with a plentiful supply, so I do sometimes pay over the odds, but that's my choice.
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Ria (aka Rommie) in Aberdeen
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Re: How do you fund your hobby? « Reply #18 on: April 07, 2023, 06:46:02 PM » Author: Lcubed3
I am currently rushing to get as many fluorescent lamps as possible, as they just got banned in my state. I am using every extra dollar for these lamps.
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Lightingguy1994
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Re: How do you fund your hobby? « Reply #19 on: April 24, 2023, 08:12:33 PM » Author: Lightingguy1994
I started collecting a decade ago when the T8 was a threat. Boy how things changed.

I mostly funded this hobby with side money I'd make from doing jobs, later in it just became funded by savings and monthly thrift budget.

In the last few years, I've significantly slowed down to a near halt with lighting. Bucket list is mostly ticked off, space is used up and I'm just not as interested as I once was due to changes to my health physically and mentally. The bad economy has also nailed few nails in the coffin for the hobby as well.
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Re: How do you fund your hobby? « Reply #20 on: April 24, 2023, 11:03:53 PM » Author: joseph_125
I kind of miss those days to be honest, back then the Restores were a gold mine for stuff such as T12s, vintage MV lamps, magnetic ballasts etc and every trip yielded something nice. Nowadays even the Restores have a bunch of LEDs there. Stuff back then at Restore was a lot cheaper too, for $20, you could leave with a nice haul of stuff, can't anymore. Kind of wish I picked up some more duplicates from those days instead of getting only one. The dupes would be great for trades nowadays.

Prices on eBay have gone up quite a bit too, I remember when 20 CAD all in you could get a NOS Lifeguard MV lamp too.
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Re: How do you fund your hobby? « Reply #21 on: April 25, 2023, 08:04:26 AM » Author: Rommie
At least you have Restores and places like them, we don't have anything comparable over here. We do have charity shops, but they're mostly second hand clothes, shoes, books, CDs/DVDs and stuff. They rarely if ever have any lighting related items, except maybe the occasional domestic table/floor lamp and such like. Certainly never any discharge lamps or ballasts etc.  :sadbulb:
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Re: How do you fund your hobby? « Reply #22 on: April 25, 2023, 01:04:33 PM » Author: Lightingguy1994
Yeah the restore is very dry now. I was lucky that those 4 F15s were hidden on a shelf. Only other fluorescent I saw there was a clearly EOL Philips Alto CW plus F40 shoved in a ripped plant and aquarium sleeve.

There were some basic wrap lights and a good amount of those modern 3 lamp parabolic troffers, which I would buy if I had a need, but I do not and they are very common anyway.

Value village actually sometimes has fixtures and interesting lights if you show up at the right time.
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Re: How do you fund your hobby? « Reply #23 on: April 25, 2023, 01:14:09 PM » Author: joseph_125
I think part of the reason why Restores seem to be dry is that the ones here have been getting most of their lighting and electrical stock as surplus items from large retailers and distributors now so you get a lot of NIB modern stuff including LED. The few HID that have shown up in recent years were typically modern stuff too.

I'm not sure if they still take electrical and lighting from personal donations now or maybe personal donors aren't the common anymore, but it would explain why most of the stuff in the lighting/electrical section is mostly NIB surplus items now instead of the more unique finds of previous years. Once on a blue moon you'll have a retailer clearing long discontinued stuff so sometimes more niche older stuff might show up.

Yeah, I noticed Value Village is still taking in most donations from the public so their lighting section sometimes has some interesting stuff. The location I got the SOX stuff from sometimes has other HID show up too.

@Rommie - Aside from Restores, we have thrift stores such as Value Village, Salvation Army and, Mission Thrift which are similar to the charity shops. They have a large clothing section but also sell a lot of miscellaneous electronics, lighting, etc which makes it worthwhile to check as they seem to sell anything that gets donated to them.
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Re: How do you fund your hobby? « Reply #24 on: April 25, 2023, 01:20:58 PM » Author: Lightingguy1994
I was there months ago, they had a few large HID parking lot flood light fixtures, that were 1kw. Asked 500 each. Yeah no Thank-you!!


I may actually go through my HID things one of these days and let go of some of the redundant ones like the 175w pulse lamps. Unless they can be comfortable running on 150w pulse MH hear.
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Re: How do you fund your hobby? « Reply #25 on: June 04, 2023, 08:44:22 AM » Author: bulb_tester2009
I have been interested in lights since I was a child, and I don't know why. Then as I became more and more passionate about lights, I studied it more and more.
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I've been collecting light bulbs since I was 2 years old and I've been collecting them ever since.
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Re: How do you fund your hobby? « Reply #26 on: July 20, 2023, 06:39:16 PM » Author: mefurd98
I haven’t bought anything (fixtures)in a while because I’m pretty happy with what I’ve got. I might buy a collectors bulb here and there if it’s a good price but other than that it’s just buying bulbs for the fixtures I actually use. But sometimes I’ll see the local electric co-op replacing fixtures and I can score some streetlights for free.
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Re: How do you fund your hobby? « Reply #27 on: July 21, 2023, 01:45:14 PM » Author: Mandolin Girl
I use the interest I get on my savings and try to avoid touching the capital  :wndr:
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Re: How do you fund your hobby? « Reply #28 on: July 22, 2023, 05:33:47 PM » Author: Andy
That's a wonderful position to be in that I could only dream of!  :laugh:
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Re: How do you fund your hobby? « Reply #29 on: July 22, 2023, 05:57:31 PM » Author: Mandolin Girl
It's only thanks to the 'Bank of Mum', a program on the computer called Ace Money that lets us keep track of our spending and cashing in a pension that I'm able to do it at all.  :love:
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Hugs and STUFF Sammi xXx (also in Aberdeen) :love: :oil-ltn:
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