Do unused bulbs go bad? :)

Haven't posted for a while, but I thought some of you might get a kick out of this...
I was looking in the old shop at the transmitter site (Farnsworth Peak), for a flashlight bulb.
Didn't find the one I needed, but did notice some very old packages and logos.

Oldest I found was a couple of packs of Eveready #222 ("A National Carbon Product"), dated February 1959.

kenglish said:

Haven't posted for a while, but I thought some of you might get a kick out of this...
I was looking in the old shop at the transmitter site (Farnsworth Peak), for a flashlight bulb.
Didn't find the one I needed, but did notice some very old packages and logos.

Oldest I found was a couple of packs of Eveready #222 ("A National Carbon Product"), dated February 1959.

Click to expand...

A bulb's (usually) tungsten filament should not "go bad".....but the support wires and/or insulating material COULD become brittle with age, resulting in cracks or breaks...causing failure if voltage is applied..
Best bet would be (assuming you wanted - or NEEDED - to use a bulb of this type/age) to run the bulb at a lower voltage/current than its rating -- a sort of "burn-in" like transmitter tubes when first placed into service....
Ummmm....am I dating myself here.....???!!!

Assuming that the vacuum seal holds and that air has not seeped in.

K6JHU said:

Assuming that the vacuum seal holds and that air has not seeped in.

Click to expand...

That's what I was thinking too. If any glue or sealant was used to seal in the vacuum I suppose it could deteriorate over time, allowing air into the bulb. Many of the bulbs of that era had the contact wires actually go through the glass envelope, with the only glue holding the glass into the metal base contact. So as Frank opined; it's probably fine.

I tinker a lot with old radios. It's pretty rare to find either a bulb or a tube that went bad just sitting. I've even found them in old trash piles in the woods, there for many decades. Cleaned up the contacts and they worked.

I know regular light bulbs have argon or some other inert gas in them rather than a vacuum but I'm not sure about those small bulbs.