General Electric introduced their first mercury vapor fixtures in 1949... the noble GE Form 109. These caught on in popularity like wildfire among freeway, roadway and traffic design engineers during the postwar years throughout the United States. Most employed 400 watt mercury lamps although they could have been ordered for use with less energy-efficient incandescent bulbs. Shown is the reflector/refractor assembly that never saw the light of day for over 60 years! Thanks to a fellow collector it is now proudly part of my extensive vintage street lighting collection. This was a replacement optical assembly. The fixture part with the lightbulb was attached via two snap-on bail-latch clips on the reflector assembly. The GE Form 109 was superceded by another model in 1955. GE 109 luminaires now are the Holy Grail of vintage street lighting enthusiasts since just about all of them are long gone (like telephone openwire...).