Philips Ultrasol sunlamp
NV-PHILIPS-GLOEILAMPENFABRIEKEN
On August 29, 1912, the NV Philips
Gloeilampenfabrieken (Philips Lightbulb Factories
Ltd.) was established whose shares were placed on
the Amsterdam Stock Exchange. Until then Philips
had already set up sales companies in the United
States and France. When the supply of gas and
glass for the bulbs stagnated due to the First World
War, Philips founded its own supplying companies
and also began setting up its own foreign
production- and sales organisations. In the 1920s,
the number of such sales companies increased
explosively. The development of new lighting
techniques drove the continuing growth of the
company. In order to promote product innovation
even further, Gerard Philips founded the Physics
Laboratory (NatLab) in 1914. It became the cradle
of many new technologies. In the NatLab for
example, the development of X-ray tubes and radio
tubes was started, the foundation of the later divisions Medical Systems and
Consumer Electronics. It was the first step towards an extensive product
diversification and many significant inventions among which various sodium- and
mercury vapour arc discharge lamps and armatures like the Philips Ultrasol sunlamp
from 1930 on display here. Around 1937 the Biosol sunlamp line was introduced and
in 1945, the first Ultraphil branded sunlamps were launched. The brand 'Ultraphil' was
one of the many brands based on the name Philips, as was the successful 'Infraphil'
branded heat lamp line.
