I've heard that currencies devalue about 10 times in 20 years. (I'm not an economist so correct me if I'm wrong.)
The prices for food, clothing etc. (and wages as well!) used to be much lower at that time.

Common Tesla T12/40W tubes used to be sold here in 1960's for 36 crowns.
Today, you can get a Sylvania T8/36W for 38 crowns (= that's about € 1.37 at the moment). Maybe even cheaper. Moreover, the current lamp is more efficient and with a better CRI.

I wonder if this immense relative price drop of fluorescents has also appeared in other countries?

It absolutely has. I can grab some figures from the 1948 GE lamp catalog:

A 60 watt inside frost bulb cost $0.11, which is $1.08 in today's money. Now you can get at least 2 bulbs for that.

An F4T5 fluorescent lamp cost $0.75, or $7.37 today, and the rated life was 500 hours. now you can get one for a little more than half that, and it lasts at least 10 times longer.

An F40T12 cost $1.00, or $9.82 today, and they were rated for 2500 hours. Now they're $4 or $5 less and last 10 times longer.

Makes you wonder how cheap LEDs will get. 50W equivalent LED retrofit lamps can already be had for less than $5.

About the prices of fluorescent lamps. If I remember correctly, was there some talk about rising prices of fluorescent lamps caused by rising demand of chemicals needes for triphosphor lamps some years ago? does anyone know was that really happening or was it just rumour?

I think it's true. The chemicals are so rare, in-fact, that at least some manufacturers are turning back to halophosphates for current lamps. GE's C41 phosphor, for example, is basically a very slightly modified Cool White Deluxe.

I think it's true. The chemicals are so rare, in-fact, that at least some manufacturers are turning back to halophosphates for current lamps. GE's C41 phosphor, for example, is basically a very slightly modified Cool White Deluxe.

That's interesting. It would be great to have halophosphates readily available (as a cheaper option) again!
However, I googled a bit and it looks like these are marketed for third world countries only??? In the EU, halophosphate fluorescents have been banned due to low efficacy since 2010. I suppose it could be similar in North America?

However, I googled a bit and it looks like these are marketed for third world countries only???

C41? Nope, widely available here. I and several other members own such lamps.

In the EU, halophosphate fluorescents have been banned due to low efficacy since 2010. I suppose it could be similar in North America?

Here, smaller lamps are still allowed to have all the normal phosphor options, but the larger lamps like the F40T12 are limited to high-CRI (so, triphosphor and deluxe halophosphor) colors. The energy saving 34 watt F40T12 is still allowed all the color options, though.

I believe the 34s are limited too. I haven't seen a new /CW F34 since 2012.

I think that in North American the DoH allows only high CRI lamps (Regardless of phosphors formulations) for F40T12 and above, while the EU banned the halophosphors itself, because of their "Inefficiency", despite triphosphors consumes the same amount of energy that halophosphors consumes in a T8 lamp. You won't save energy using a 36W T8 triphosphors over 36W T8 halophosphors, as BOTH consumes the same amount of energy, only the triphosphors, will be brighter than the halophosphors.
There are no reasons to ban a readily available phosphor materials and force users to use rare materials for phosphors.
And as I discovered in Wikipedia that Britian is an independent islands state, which isn't part of Europe continent at all (Like Israel), I hope that UK will get out from the EU.

I thought that at first, too, but according to GE's web site, they still offer the F34CW, and it's not marked export and it doesn't say it's discontinued. But I suppose it wouldn't be the first time GE's web site has misinformation.

Dor, efficiency doesn't mean how much energy something uses. It means how much of that energy is converted to a useful form. Triphosphors create more light with the same amount of energy used - that's why halophosphates were banned for your lamps.

But the target of the EU, is to save few wattage, and banning halophosphors in favor of triphosphors, don't save any watt.

They save wattage because you can use lower-wattage lamps for the same application. I would assume a triphosphor F36T8 puts out as much or more light than a halophosphate F40T12 does. That's certainly the case for our F32T8.

Tri phosphor F36T8 is more than 3300lm, F40T12 was about 2600lm or so, about the same as halophosphate F36T8.

The tri-phosphor does consume the same power as an F36T8 halophosphate, but when you use them in a 4-lamp fixtures (quite common in factories, beside the HID systems), you may leave every 4'th position empty with the same overall illumination still meeting the original specificaqtion, yet have 25% lower energy use.

The reasoning is: With just tri-phosphors it will either save the power, or at least it won't harm, so the halophosphate were judged as not needed.

Personally I'm more missing are the F40 (they could be with tri-phosphor, such lamps will still quite outperform the halophosphate T8's in the efficacy): There are many open fixtures, where the T8 just can not perform well due to the too low operating temperature, or could not be used at all, because the seals are designed for a 39mm lamp.
And replacing these with modern water tight fixtures means more light loss than is the gain from the T8 vs T12.

The US F32T8 is a bit more efficient than the European F36T8, mainly on account of the cathode losses (250mA x 15V instead of 430mA x 15V), so about the same output as the F40 (of the same phosphor family).

It is quite remarkable that both the incandescent lamp and linear fluorescent have entirely defeated the effects of inflation over so many years.  With incandescent it is even more impressive, the prices were approximately the same more than a hundred years ago.  There are very few other everyday objects that have managed this feat of beating inflation thanks to continual improvements being made in their materials and manufacturing processes.  Unfortunately though it is not good for energy saving : the amount of money people spend on light has not beaten inflation, and remains approximately the same % of their earnings over time.  It seems that there is a certain budget that people are willing to pay for light, and when the cost of light goes down, they simply use more of it.  Average illuminance levels and the average quantity of lamps per home is continually increasing, and the introduction of more efficient lamps has almost never resulted in real energy savings.  People just use more of them.  The same applies to many other energy-based commodities.  When energy becomes cheaper, we find other things to use it for which were previously not affordable.

Medved, you can replace F40T12 in Europe with the IRS versions having a metal stripe for ignition.  Those are classed as special products and exempt from the efficacy requirements.  Of course the metal stripe is completely unnecessary in normal applications, and unfortunately it means that the lamps cost a little more, but it at least allows you to avoid the problems of poor T8 performance in low ambient temperatures.

The low cost of incandescents was, what sealed their fate: At the beginning of the 20'th century they were a cash cows, so get the top priority with any development funding. AT the end of the 20'th century, most makers were struggling to keep them with at least positive profit, but on very aging machinery, threatening with collapse, for a new machinery the payback time would be too long. So it becomes apparent, they can not continue with the incandescents. So to prevent people from switching to cheepeese makers, they just lobbied for the incandescent bans...