Artifact #9

DISCOVERED

After a Century in Darkness

Edison Trial Evidence Collection

"U.S. Patent Office Declaration of Interference, Sawyer and Man vs. Edison"

Edison Patent Model Lamp No. 9

Lamp label - Letter "X"

Lamp label - No. 54

Lamp label - No. 13

Lamp No. 9 - Patent Model Exhibit No. "X", 54, and 13

"U.S. Patent Office Declaration of Interference, Sawyer and Man vs. Edison"

Lamp 9 is a Patent Model made at Edison's laboratory in Menlo Park. This lamp was made in 1881 to support Edison's legal defense against the Sawyer and Man lamp in the Patent Interference Declaration issued by the Patent Commissioner on September 23, 1880. The "twin spiral" filament shape was made at a time when Edison had already moved on to his famous bamboo "horseshoe" and "hairpin" shaped filaments. This lamp was made strictly as a Patent Model, the spiral bamboo being only blackened with soot, not carbonized by heat as would be the case for a lamp destined to be put into service. The lamp is otherwise made precisely in accordance with the description in Edison's fundamental lamp patent #223,898. The Twin Spiral filament gives this lamp a unique legacy, no lamp of this design known has the unique provenance documentation to match this jurisprudence precedent setting piece of early electric lighting history.

This Edison lamp has four paper labels. The label located near the evacuation tip (tit) is a quartered court square with a hand written "9" in the center, the number coinciding with its position in the pigeon hole compartments of the wooden box. The older courtroom exhibit labels are located near the base of the lamp and are marked in dark ink with the letter "X" and the number "54" and "13."

NOTE: the lamp globe still shows glue marks where other labels were once fastened.

2007 is this lamp's 126 th. Anniversary

Go To the Collection Group Exhibit

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