Here we have an exciting and "working" piece of the great rivalry in early electric history. This is a Sawyer Man incandescent carbon lamp which is the work of William Sawyer and Albon Man. Their work, as well as the work of Moses Farmer, Edward Weston and Hiram Maxim, through a series of ever changing intellectual property (Patent) acquisitions during the 1880's finally became the property of Westinghouse in May 1889. This history provides reference to help date hand crafted Sawyer Man incandescent lamps before May 1889. Westinghouse eventually became Edison's greatest rival in the incandescent lighting market war and this lamp is representative of that great era. This early Sawyer Man lamp has full length platinum lead-in wires, a one piece "Y" shaped pipette stem with hollow final branches and a Mather / Perkins base. The brass shielded M/P base has a red composition internal 5/8 flared socket with two contoured copper contacts and an inner card label which reads 108 v 2.4 c (two point four "c"). This Sawyer Man / Mather Perkins incandescent lamp is a very distinguished item of early electric lighting history.