Famous light bulb collections

Dr Hicks and the Mount Vernon Museum of Incandescent Lighting

Over the course of many decades, Dr. Hicks amassed a collection of antique and vintage light bulbs that was rumored to be near the 60,000 mark but likely the amount was far less than this popular estimate. The Hicks collection was home to a number of many important early light bulbs including original Edison prototype lamps. The collection was considered to be one of the best of its time, if not the best and most represented.

Sourced from BulbCollector.com

His enthusiasm for glowing glass never exhausted, and through the years he amassed a collection that included a bulb from the original torch of the Statue of Liberty and headlamps from the Mercedes-Benz limousines of Nazi leaders Adolf Hitler and Heinrich Himmler. Dr. Hicks regularly told visitors to his free, private museum that his was the only collection in the world containing an uninterrupted history of the light bulb, including 15 or 20 bulbs that Thomas Alva Edison probably held in his hands 122 years ago. "In terms of numbers, his may very well be the largest collection in the world, certainly the largest collection any of us knew," said Harold D. Wallace, a specialist with the Smithsonian Institution National Museum of American History. "He was the kind of guy who never met a light bulb he didn't like. "There are greedy collectors, but Hugh was always a generous collector who donated objects to us and lent them freely," Mr. Wallace said.