Hello all. We've had the unfortunate experience of having found a small light bulb in our collection in a small cardboard typewriter ribbon box ( It's a GE 15w 120v bulb and about 3" long). It has no accession number on it and we cannot find any such object in our card catalog. I'm sure we're the only museum ever that's found unnumbered objects on a shelf in the collection, right? :-) Anyway, we need to determine if it's a museum piece or a small light bulb that somebody took out of an exhibit case and set on a shelf. Have light bulbs changed since, say 1930 or 1950, in any way that's noticeable to the average person? Perhaps it could be a bulb that lights the dial on a BIG radio or something like that, but there's no documentation of it with any of the possible electronic items in our collections, so I'm thinking all we can do is assume that it's a museum piece and catalog it with a new number and the note "of unknown origin--found in the collection" and hope someone figures it out someday. Any advice? Thanks! Chris. Christine Mouw Assistant Curator Herbert Hoover Presidential Library-Museum West Branch, Iowa 52358 [log in to unmask]