Author Topic: Traveling to Japan next week - any lamps to look out for?  (Read 1776 times)
Maxim
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Traveling to Japan next week - any lamps to look out for? « on: June 23, 2025, 06:02:55 PM » Author: Maxim
Hi all,

I am traveling to Japan for an international student exchange program for piano this weekend / next week. I will be stopping in Tokyo, Atami, Hakone, Izu, Mt. Fuji (Kawaguchiko), and Kakegawa. Any lamps I should look out for in my travels?
Specifically, what regions of Japan are 50Hz, and which are 60Hz? Also, are there any specific lighting stores I should stop at in any of these places?

Finally, if you want me to look out for specific lamps, reply here or PM me. If I can fit what you're asking me to buy into suitcase, I will bring it home with me. Else, I will try and ship it from Japan to your address through their postal system.
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Re: Traveling to Japan next week - any lamps to look out for? « Reply #1 on: June 23, 2025, 07:29:18 PM » Author: joseph_125
Nice!

I went to Japan years ago back in 2017. Of those cities you listed, I only went to Tokyo. There's a district in Tokyo called Akihabara that had a lot of electronics retailers that was fun to walk though. Most of them even had lighting stuff such as lamps and fixtures. There was also a smaller lighting shop somewhere in Akihabara that was fairly small but had a lot of cool stuff like HID and other lighting parts.

Some retailers of interest:
Tokyu Hands/Hands - Arts and crafts and DIY like a Michael's crafts mixed in with a Home Depot. Had a decent selection of incandescent, LED, fluorescent.
Bic Camera - Electronics and video games similar to Best Buy, had some lamps if I remember correctly. Incandescent, LED and fluorescent. 
Yodobashi Camera - Electronics and video games similar to Best Buy, had a more wider lamp selection they had incandescent, LED, fluorescent and MV.
Shimachu Home's - Think of it as their Home Depot but with more housewares. Had the larger selection of lamps, incandescent, LED, fluorescent, MV, HPS, MH. Also had fluorescent fixtures like the common "Reverse Fuji" style.

Tokyo is in the 50Hz part of the country, The western part of the country is 60Hz and I bought most of my 60Hz stuff from the same stores in Osaka.

Some lamps of interest, although I suppose bans might have made some unavailable:
- small T5s like F4T5, F6T5, F8T5, etc.
- circlines in uncommon colour temperatures such as 5000K
- 40w and 100w MV lamps made for the Japanese domestic market.
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Re: Traveling to Japan next week - any lamps to look out for? « Reply #2 on: June 23, 2025, 08:39:32 PM » Author: Maxim
Thanks Joe!  8)
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Re: Traveling to Japan next week - any lamps to look out for? « Reply #3 on: June 24, 2025, 07:42:04 AM » Author: Multisubject
Thats super cool! I hear things are wEiRd over there, I have seen many pictures on here of strange Japanese lighting things. Take some pictures for us!
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Re: Traveling to Japan next week - any lamps to look out for? « Reply #4 on: June 29, 2025, 09:17:16 AM » Author: James
Fantastic, you will love it!  It is 20 years since I worked for Iwasaki over there so some places below may have changed, but I was last there very briefly about 5 years ago and there was still a great selection of lamp shops.

As others have mentioned, Akihabara Electric Town is probably your best bet to find interesting old lighting shops.  Very easy to get to, just one stop on the Yamanote metro green line from Ueno central station in Tokyo.

Yodobashi Camera chainstores have an excellent selection of all modern lamps at perhaps the best prices.  Probably you can still find some of the unique Japanese CFLs there, along with their unusual twin-tube circlines, the square circlines, flattened-section circlines, and flat spiral high wattage fluorescents which began to take over just before the LED era.

Yamagiwa lighting stores also had a good selection.  Their main business is lighting fixtures, often high-end architectural and very expensive things, and to help customers keep old fixtures alive they used to be renowned for their excellent stocks of older incandescents, halogen and lower wattage HID types - although pretty expensive.

By far the most interesting for me though, were the small lamp and electronics markets.  Akihabara is full of big chain stores that occupy most of the street frontage - but in between their huge and grossly over-lit entrances you can find narrow corridors, sometimes nothing more than just a staircase or escalator at street level, that extends backwards or upwards.  It may feel like you are taking your life into your own hands to disappear into those entrances, but I can highly recommend exploring some of those!  Those are the places that do not earn big profits and cannot afford big street entrances, and where you find the best deals as well as the oldest stocks.  Sometimes it can be a bit hit and miss, it could be just a long corridor to a tiny smoky and room selling some kind of highly specialised obsolete electronic components.  But other times it will open out into a cavernous space rammed full of tiny electronics stalls.  The best ones to look out for are the entrances with undecipherable signs of text annotated with eg 2F, 3F, ... 7F etc - denoting the number of floors of markets that are stacked above the entrance, and here you can almost always find a few stands inside with some kind of older lighting products - as well as a mass of vintage electronics, which I also find fascinating to see.

There are also two fantastic small lamp shops I remember, but they were run by old Japanese gentelemen who even 25 years ago looked as though they should be retired so I am afraid that one day soon they may disappear.  The first is Koto Electric  This guy still had carbon filament lamps and many older HID in stock last time I was there.  See Google location and scroll through the photos at the link.  IT seems the link does not work fully, you may have to click Back at upper left, and then click on the thumbnails again to see all.

Another good one was Mitsuwa Denki but looking at these photos it seems they Ledified a lot (same thing again, click Back, then again choose Mitsuwa Denki from the list, and then Photos).

Akizuki has a lot of second hand old electronics, highly variable, I never found too much but worth trying.  So popular it seems they often have a queue on the street to get inside!  I was in touch with the owner by email a year or two ago, because he also gets stocks of older LEDs from the 70s-80s-90s, which I find quite interesting.  But he did not have any stock left of the world's first white LED from Nichia of 1996 which I was looking for!

Marutsu I remember the name well but looking at these photos it seems they also modernised now and specialise in electronic components more.  If I remember rightly they had 3 different shops in Akihabara so it could be that they have lighting at another location.

It would be worth you pinging a message to Al Martin, if he does not reply here.  He was in Japan much more recently and found a great place that sold many older HID lamps, which I do not remember visiting myself.  Perhaps he would have more details.
« Last Edit: June 29, 2025, 09:22:04 AM by James » Logged
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Re: Traveling to Japan next week - any lamps to look out for? « Reply #5 on: June 29, 2025, 11:15:09 PM » Author: joseph_125
Yep, definitely poke around Akihabara Electric Town like James mentioned, I remember like he said, some of the alleys having interesting smaller shops having interesting older lighting stuff and lighting components. I forgot the exact location of the small shop I went in, but it was a smaller shop with items not found in the larger shops like the JIS style fluorescent lampholders, JIS starter sockets, JIS mogul lampholders, and I even spotted a SBMV (should have bought that one). Another interesting thing I saw were the globe shaped MV lamps, think like a G40 but MV with a /DX phosphor.

Now be warned, a lot of those smaller shops don't speak English, but the last time I was able to make do by pointing to what I wanted and paying in Yen (cash). I suppose now with Google translate it will be easier to communicate. 

Not sure if anything changed but Japan was still a largely cash only country when I visited, larger stores like Yodobashi Camera did take credit cards but most smaller shops were cash only.
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Re: Traveling to Japan next week - any lamps to look out for? « Reply #6 on: July 07, 2025, 09:32:09 PM » Author: Maxim
Thank you @James  and @joseph_125 !!

Currently in Akihabara Electric Town- I will look out for all of those places. :)
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Re: Traveling to Japan next week - any lamps to look out for? « Reply #7 on: July 08, 2025, 12:06:02 AM » Author: Maxim
Here's a photo of me with the owner of Koto Electric.   ;D
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Re: Traveling to Japan next week - any lamps to look out for? « Reply #8 on: July 08, 2025, 10:50:43 AM » Author: shokoshiro
enjoy your trip! seems like you're having a good time checking out some local places. one day i'll make it over there to visit my friend in Kobe (and also go to like 1 million different shops of all different kinds...)
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Re: Traveling to Japan next week - any lamps to look out for? « Reply #9 on: July 08, 2025, 01:09:01 PM » Author: Maxim
Thank you, @shokoshiro ! It ends tomorrow afternoon, but I've had a splendid time here.

I've bought some very unique and interesting lamps... especially from this shop.

Ie:

- A Japanese induction lamp (National)
- A 15w NEC RGB phosphor lamp (1/3 is Red, 1/3 is Green, 1/3 is Blue)
- A 20w Toshiba lamp that is primarily phosphored but has no phosphor down an even strip through the lamp
- two clear globe CFLs, both with white phosphor but illuminate green
- a very early 1980s strobe lamp
- a 40w merc
- tons of miscellaneous metal halide products
- "balafire" type lamps– some candles, some flames. Has the magnet on the outside rather than the inside (i believe Kyp-Go owned that patent)
- and far more. Just as much as I can list off the top of my head.

Also, some of the employees in this shop may join L-G in the near future; I showed them my gallery and they expressed immense interest in the site. They were generally very interested in my lamp "Otaku" (お宅/オタク) and wanted to know what kinds I like, etc.

They let me roam the entire three-story store– I could rummage through anything and everything for as long as I wanted. I paid a grand total of around ¥12,000 there, but primarily because there are some HID lamps that I got which were extremely expensive, at least in Japan. Even still, I think that's about $68?

Also, it seems like the future is dim for lighting shops in Akihabara Electric Town, as well as wider Japan. As everything turns bscomes LED, these smaller shops lose their market position, and begin to lose customers, money, etc. Supposedly Kōtō had just moved their store location back in June, and that I had I come earlier there would have been far more vintage HID and CFLs to choose from. @James - I am very glad you recommended me to visit this place. :)
« Last Edit: July 08, 2025, 01:13:03 PM by Maxim » Logged

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Re: Traveling to Japan next week - any lamps to look out for? « Reply #10 on: July 08, 2025, 05:47:02 PM » Author: Multisubject
@Maxim
I have seen pictures of those RGB phosphored tubes, they look really cool lit!
That 20W lamp may be for use with copiers, and from the pictures I have seen the phosphor is usually green.
I love it when they don't color the glass with colored fluorescent lamps, it is like a little surprise every time!

Looking like you had a great trip! Looking forward to pictures!
 :)
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Re: Traveling to Japan next week - any lamps to look out for? « Reply #11 on: July 08, 2025, 08:09:46 PM » Author: Baked bagel 11
I'm glad that you had a great trip Maxim! 8;)
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Re: Traveling to Japan next week - any lamps to look out for? « Reply #12 on: July 08, 2025, 11:32:35 PM » Author: joseph_125
Glad you had a great trip. Looks like you got a lot of lighting goodies too. BTW I have one of those Japanese Balafire lamps with the external magnets as well, I think it was called a Asahi Lamp or something like that.
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Re: Traveling to Japan next week - any lamps to look out for? « Reply #13 on: July 09, 2025, 11:14:07 AM » Author: shokoshiro
what a lovely trip report! glad you had a good time and made some new connections.

if any of your new Japanese acquaintances are considering joining the forums here, i also speak some Japanese and would be happy to welcome them.
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Re: Traveling to Japan next week - any lamps to look out for? « Reply #14 on: July 09, 2025, 04:54:32 PM » Author: James
I am so pleased to hear that Kōtō Electric is still going and that you could meet the owner!  The last time I had time to rummage around his stocks was 25 years ago and back then he did not speak English, and my Japanese was very basic, and translating apps let alone smartphones did not exist.  So it was kind of difficult, and back then prices were way higher!

Sad though that times are becoming difficult for such companies even in Japan.

It sounds like you came home with a great haul of interesting and unique stuff, like everyone I am looking forward to see your photos. 

Please do persuade them to join LG if possible.  Several of us have interesting and unknown Japanese lamps but if I am not mistaken there are not so many lamp collectors here from that country.  It would be great if Kōtō could help identify some of our examples or provide further details 😁
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