I have an antique light fixture that has wiring with a fabric cover. About how old is this? I was thinking 1920s.
My home was built in the 20's and it had wiring with cloth around it.
It had cloth covering up until the advent of usable plastics after WWII and plastic coatings on consumer products came along later than that I would say early 50's is when plastic insulated wiring came along. The conductors (wires) should be rubber insulated, and the pair is fabric insulated. Or are you talking a home that has two individual conductors that are ran on old spool type insulators, those are at the dawn of home electrical wiring and it depends on the fixture you have. If the conductors are paired and individually rubber coated, but the outer sheath is a fiberglass type materiel it could be as new as about 1950.
Sounds like a varnished cambric cloth over vulcanized rubber. Difficult to date it without much time consuming research. Heat resistant properties made/make it attractive. Cambric electrical tape is still being produced for special applications. Before I retired, seen a small section of non-working underground lead covered, cambric insulated cable in a Chestnut wood trough or conduit. Learning that the wood was in fact American Chestnut put it back a ways in time. Varnish impregnated cambric cloth has been around for awhile in the electrical industry.
