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Mole-Richardson (England) Ltd


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I bought a few vintage lights some years ago from the Finnish public broadcasting company YLE and restored them.

Now I started wondering what year these fixtures were introduced/manufactured and contacted Mole-Richardson Co. in CA but their customer service informed me that they had nothing to do with these lights.

A little bit of googling didn't really help me out and couldn't find information about the "Mole-Richardson (England) Ltd."

Does somebody know the history of the company Mole-Richardson (England) Ltd.?
Or even better, does someone have any trivia about these Type 398 and Type 598 lights by the Mole-Richardson (England) Ltd.?

 

Pretty vague questions but the history of the industry is always fascinating.

Best,
Tuomas 'Nopsa' Viitakoski

 

 

 

 

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First thing that seems odd is they aren't painted Mole Maroon.

 

I'd go over to ControlBooth dot com and ask member Ship if he's ever seen a similar Mole fixture. He's pretty much the resident expert on old lighting gear.

Edited by JD Hartman
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First thing that seems odd is they aren't painted Mole Maroon.

 

I'd go over to ControlBooth dot com and ask member Ship if he's ever seen a similar Mole fixture. He's pretty much the resident expert on old lighting gear.

Thanks for the tip JD!

I looked him up and will contact him.

 

The customer service person from Mole informed that they didn't manufacture these - I guess that's why they aren't Mole Maroon.

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Mole-Richardson [ England} lamps were all that colour here in the UK and Europe the company was bought by Lee Electric in the 1970's .

P.S. I should have said that Mole Richardson [England] had a factory in a place called Thetford which is in Norfolk or maybe Suffolk .

 

Thanks for the tip John!

 

I searched throughout the internet and and found out that Mole-Richardson (England) Ltd:

 

- had some patents ( http://documents.allpatents.com/d/g/Mole-Richardson-England-Ltd )

- had branch companies in Paris, Rome, Madrid and Munich where they were selling and renting gear ( http://www.gracesguide.co.uk/images/7/7d/Mole-Richardson_1958SL.jpg )

- was a subsiriady of George Humphries & Co. Ltd (later Humphries Holdings PLC) which was then acquired by Lee International in 1985

 

Apparently National Media Museum in Bradford, UK has one Type 398 in their Kodak Colletion. I'm contacting their research dept. for more info. ( http://collection.sciencemuseum.org.uk/objects/co205629/mole-richardson-floodlamp-type-398 )

 

Most interesting thing is that Mole-Richardson (England) Limited had nothing to do with the Mole-Richardson in the Hollywood.

Somehow would've thought there was some sort of connection.

Edited by Tuomas Viitakoski
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