Vintage lamp's popularity surprises retired designer

In 1950, his design won third place in a MOMA lamp competition.
KNIGHT RIDDER NEWSPAPERS
PHILADELPHIA -- Jim Crate was at home recuperating after a hospital stay, bored to tears and noodling around on the Internet, when he decided to Google himself. That's when he first learned that a lamp he designed more than 50 years ago had become a sought-after collector's item.
"One had sold at auction for more than $20,000," said Crate, 80, who lives in Queen Village, Pa. "I was just floored."
Now, his T-3-C lamp, a prime example of the "Atomic" style in postwar modern American design, is back on the market. Reissued in a limited edition of 500 by H Lighting Co., the lamp ($895) is available at Mode Moderne in Philadelphia.
Industrial design career
Crate, who retired 15 years ago after a long career as an industrial designer for DuPont, was just 25 years old when he took third place with his creation in the Museum of Modern Art's 1950 lamp-design competition. He was a stylist then with General Motors, where he worked on the first Corvette. His lamp's futuristic look grew out of a need to solve functional problems. "I wanted something that would diffuse light and was adjustable. Everything is there for function."
He came up with a spun-aluminum housing in the shape of a hyperbolic funnel; three cork-ball-tipped metal rods serve as feet and are attached to a light-reflecting disk with springs.
The T-3-C turned out to be his only serious brush with lighting design. At DuPont, Crate found new uses for plastics. Among his innovations: a five-spoked wheel for a BMX bicycle now in the collection of the Smithsonian.
Of the original manufacturer's small 1951 run of Crate's lamp, few examples remain. "I've been in this business for 27 years, and I have only heard of three at auction," said Michael Glatfelter, who owns Mode Moderne with partner Michael Wilson.
Recently, Crate saw one in an auction catalog. "They had it assembled all wrong, and it looked terrible."