Macuser wrote:
As far as I know, they're ALL made in China, but I said I prefer the bulbs
be name brand because they tend to have a more attractive glow. GE and
other
brands tend to be much warmer as far as I have seen. One bulb I have fires
up as a dim colored rose bulb, and then it brightens to be a full spectrum
bulb. It's pretty weird.




The lamps that use a mercury amalgam rather than metallic mercury will
have mercury starvation until they warm up, so you'll get the reddish
glow of the mostly argon exciting the phosphor. The amalgam is commonly
used on lamps with higher power densities, that is higher wattage for
the size of the tube as it helps regulate vapor pressure.