So it looks like the latest 3 footers could end up going mercury starved? All mine are over 10 years old. Are they dim on start up now?

these are also0 in my list of favourite tubes!, these are / were good... in my expierience they seem to blacken quicky but go on and on for years.. i have some of these in 18W,36W,58W. the Triphosphors, Col 840 & 865 are the worst for going Starved IMO

I think the latest generation of these Osram Halos are now Chinese! The Lumilux with the green etches and that gay tree are still German tho! Yes they are terrible at first power-up, especially in the cold!

I have seen some Chinese Osram tree's.. Ive always liked the Tubes with the Tree on... Yes i also have some L18W/535 that are China... They are exactly the same as the Edison ones i have

I know the ones! BTW, great pic, Eliot!

Yeah most 3 footers now start up dim in the middle. One of my main reasons for being such a fan of 3 footers is they're argon filled and give similar performance to argon T12s: almost immediate full light output, perform better in the cold and are easy to start. Now the latest ones with very low doses of mercury are almost as bad as the T8 krypton energy savers, I've tried GEs, Osrams, Philips and Sylvanias and they all suffer from this problem! The Osrams don't seem to be quite so bad, the 3' 30W Skywhite I have starts at nearly full output and doesn't take long to get there.

I must say I do dislike seeing any sort of stupid symbols of triphosphor lamps like the Osram tree, Radium clover leaf and the Philips tick. They ruin the etch completely!

Iagree that they have ruined the Philips Name.. They should of kept the Philips Logo.. I really miss that logo

Yeah the shield was good, they seem to be slowly doing away with it though on most of their consumer appliances too. I don't mind the new etch though with just Philips on it!

Why did Osram use 23 for 35 and 20 for 33 etc why didnt they have them as OSRAM L 30W/35?

Well there's no standards for the colour codes, manufacturers could use whatever they wanted or not even have a code. Most of them seemed to be quite sensible though and use the same numbers, for some reason Osram didn't though!