Got this and that arm in the other picture back in Colorado when I still lived there. Decided to "restore it" and paint it blue instead of boring old grey. It is drying outside right now. I need a new PC socket as the original one in this was busted. But I will show images after restoration is complete!
WTF? That's cool! I wonder if one of the contractors had painted it blue as a joke or something? I'm sure you could have them painted blue at the factory, but you'd need to order a large amount of them since they'd have to set up the powdercoat machine for that color. Boston had custom ordered 115s and 125s in silver for a few years in the mid-2000s. Pretty cool! Unfortunately AELs have issues with the paint falling off in large sheets, making the fixture look very ugly. It has to do with the castings getting contaminated between the time they get their chemical bath and the time their powdercoated. Coopers have similar issues, but I find their issue tends to be with roads with higher salt usage (freeways) and on roads near the ocean. GE has never had issues with the paint flaking off, but in the 80s GE did have a bad issue with the paint seeming to "melt" off the housing within a decade or so. The pre-1965 lights had the same issuse, though 1965 through the mid-70s wasn't too bad. By the mid-late 70s they started with the paint wearing off fairly quickly. Their 1992-onward lights are better. The ones I see now have the paint pretty much worn off the very top but the sides and of course the doors are fine.
Their newer lights from the past seven or eight years seem to hold up very well. I have a 2009 GE M-400 (400W HPS) removed this summer of 2016 and seven years later I'd say the thing could pass for NOS if I polished the paint on the top of the housing. The insides were dusty but otherwise very clean. Must've been on a 2" pipe arm. They keep the critters out better than the usual 1-1/4" arms. Ontario uses the tapered arms so they're all 2". They only use 2" arms here now but we have a lot of 1-1/4" arms, which were used until the mid-90s.
I just scored 2 175w MV 113's, and one of them is in pretty bad condition and needs to be refurbished. I think I might paint it blue or green like this since that would match perfectly with a clear mercury vapor.
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Their newer lights from the past seven or eight years seem to hold up very well. I have a 2009 GE M-400 (400W HPS) removed this summer of 2016 and seven years later I'd say the thing could pass for NOS if I polished the paint on the top of the housing. The insides were dusty but otherwise very clean. Must've been on a 2" pipe arm. They keep the critters out better than the usual 1-1/4" arms. Ontario uses the tapered arms so they're all 2". They only use 2" arms here now but we have a lot of 1-1/4" arms, which were used until the mid-90s.