Old House Wall Fixture

[Bob Coleman]

I'm repainting the living room in my 1925 Denver house and when I removed the wall light fixtures found something unusual. First thing, and I couldn't even get a halfway useful picture of this, is that the screws from the installed fixtures (modern crap) went from the flat mounting bar through the plaster, and then into the box. But the box has an odd construction. It looks like there is a mud ring installed (or maybe its the box itself, I can't tell, you can see it on the left side of the opening), but it is smaller than the box opening, and the screws went through the plaster, on the outside of the outer ring, and on the inside of the box. I really have no idea what the screws were holding onto. They were pretty standard looking sheet metal screws, so I suppose they could have been put into predrilled holes through the metal, but they weren't especially secure.

The other thing, and this is my question, is the threaded hickey in the center. What is that, what is the thread, can I hang a new light fixture on it, and do they even make new light fixtures that will work?

Thanks a bunch in advance!

[W Craig Wilson]

Bob,
That 'threaded hickey' is pecisely to hang the fixture. If you look closely in your photo you will see that there is a mounting screw just beside the 'hickey'. Under the black and red wires I think I can see a second screw. These screws secure the box to the stud running behind, visible through the'hickey' center.

I have never run accross this type in a wall mount but have seen many in cielings. The threads are standard pipe thread, as I recall (I hthought I had one to measure but that box must have been lost in a move). The problem you may run in to, as did the last person to try to hng sometning, is that modern fixtures don't have a corresponding mounting point.