When did they stop using cloth cords for lamps?

I have a vintage lamp I'm trying to date. Unfortunately do not have a photo and the lamp is at another location. It has a cloth cord with a larger style plug. (If memory serves, the plug is a cream colored white, and some kind of older plastic.)

Just wondering what the latest year you would find a lamp with this kind of cord and plug. 40's? Thoughts?

 

Most lamp manufactures phased out the cloth cord by the late 30's.

 

I have had replacement cloth cords with whitish plugs in their original package from the early '70s. Other parts of the lamp are much better for dating.

 

Thanks!

Parts of the lamp looked 60's or even 70's to me stylistically (if the paper shade was original -- it was shiny gold on the outside) I just saw it today with some other things. I just got thinking about that plug and wondered. It was kind of a cool lamp, had some unusual features, but I'm trying to be extremely picky with heavier and hard to ship items.

 

Sockets can be a good indicator, once you get to know em, but they can be swapped too.

 

Under the shade it had two sockets facing down, I think with a pull cord, I usually associate that kind of thing w/older, but didn't get a great look at the sockets. But I can say with total certainty it wasn't newer than 1970's.

Usually I can sum up a lamp's age from the style alone but dating this one was a stumper. I had pretty much decided not to get it based on my "hard to ship" rule, but I found myself thinking about it later. It was the kind of lamp that would be way more interesting if it was older. It had this odd sort of internally painted floral pattern. Not a transfer, not painted on the outside, not exactly sure what the technology would have been to create. (The seller wrote "reverse painted" on the tag, but I don't think that was it.) But then, the shiny gold shade, which actually looked like it might have been original and I think suggests 60's or 70's.

Anyway is almost certainly still there. Not in a busy location.

 

This didn't survive shipping.

 

Oh... darn! Too bad.

Yes, shipping something like is a challenge. Things can happen even when you pack the heck out of it.

This lamp is a bit different than what I was looking it. Mine was more .. sort of Asian (roughly) several sprigs of flowers, just an odd treatment of how the decoration was somehow (?) created was what caught my eye. The seller's description of "reverse painted" wasn't quite accurate, but I'm not sure how to describe it exactly.

Anyway, if I go back again to this spot in the next week, I might just take a 2nd look, but good to keep shipping in mind. Thanks.

 

When did they stop using cloth cords for lamps?

When their house started burning down?

 

Hi Mansons,
NOT true, I still use cloth cords for my lamps, for some reason the cats to not chew on them. They will chew the Hell out of plastic cords. They make them in several colors. I had one that was golden brown with red highlights. It was my favorite but the company has either gone out of business or stopped making it.
greg

 

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Golden-Bron...641763?hash=item2cb913c5a3:g:8bAAAOSw2s1UtAEk

 

Hi Fenton,
Nice, but mine was a single cord with red diamond pattern.
greg

 

they made cloth cords on lamps up to the late 30s

 

Really? That line looks like a horizon to me - Can't imagine a break would just happen to follow the hill like that. I don't think it has much value because of the crudity of the painting and mix of styles, but if you own it, you could check inside to see whether that line is painted or an actual crack.

 

Those pictures were from before shipping. The line is drawn. The entire lower metal work was collapsed from a severe slamming. Another UPS disaster. Do not ever use UPS. For anything.