Ok, my parents weighted in on the issue. And it is resolved. Will leave this up here in case anyone, anywhere online ever wants the answer.

Dad: "The filament gets hot and vaporizes and the gas recondenses on the glass. Even though it blocks some of the light there is no harm."

Mom: "It looks kind of cool. It matches the color of the fixture!"

Yeah, but what's floating in the air that is collecting on the tip of the bulb? Cigarette smoke? Dust?

It's not just the heat from the filament because then all chandelier bulbs would do this and they don't.

Is that a vintage fixture? The wiring may be going bad. See below.

After reading this and you noting that one of the bulbs is not brown, I think it's very likely the fixture is arcing and that higher current is going through the brown bulbs. You have a safety issue I fear. I would disconnect the fixture ASAP

I've never had that happen, unless a bulb has gone bad and stopped working.

My stash of incandescent bulbs is getting small! I only have them in my 3 main chandeliers, which don't get used often, so what I have is lasting for now! I dread the day I have to find LED candelabra style bulbs for my dining room chandelier. Haven't seen one yet, that looks good when completely visible.

Forget the bubs, could be all above and beside the point!! Not safe, and I have never had it happen to ANY bulb

What room and why so high? Wrong light for the SPACE no matter the bulb - unless you are Wilt Chamberlain?!

Get a semi flush... Sorry!!!!

I did a web search and found some explanations that sound like your dad's. He may be right, but I agree with Beverly; it would be a very good idea to get both your wiring and the fixture checked for possibly dangerous problems. I have never seen this happen with a chandelier bulb, and there are several large chandeliers still hanging in the house I grew up in. They all have incandescent bulbs similar in appearance to yours—minus the brown ends.

I have, however, narrowly averted a house fire when the wiring to one of those chandeliers went bad, causing sparks to fly when a bulb was being changed. We ended up replacing nearly all the wiring in the house. It was a fairly big expense, but a lot cheaper than losing the house to a fire would have been.

@chispa, Satco makes LED chandelier bulbs. They're probably not the only company that does, but that was the first brand name I saw that I recognized.

The chandelier is antique. I had the whole thing rewired then used in my vestibule in Philadelphia for 8 years with no problem. I have now had it in my New York office for four years.

Great question about how old the wiring is. I live in an 1938 coop building. They are plaster ceilings and I have not heard about anybody in our building chopping the ceilings open to redo the wiring.

I will have an electrician look at it when I get one in to reconnect the under cabinet lighting that the cabinet maker disconnected four years ago. I have not been able to find any electrician to come to do such small jobs! I had an electrician here doing a big job for me in our studio down the hall and he wouldn't even come down the hall to look at my piddly work.

@amystoller - Do you have an electrician who comes to do small work?

We have an electrician on staff at our building but he is a freaking idiot and was perplexed by my under cabinet lights. Any time he comes to do something in my apartment he breaks something else. I won't let him in.

@JAN MOYERI have searched for years to find flush mounts I like and come up empty handed. So this is my chandy flush. I know it is not most people's taste to hang this light in this fashion, but I love it.

@chispa - Come on over. I could open a lighting supply store with the amount of bulbs I have here.

Alas, the electricians I used for my current home work for my GC and are probably on the pricier side. I can’t recommend the fellow who rewired my childhood home for reasons I can’t go into here. I can ask around …

You do not own the building, and if it goes back to 1938, that wiring pre dates even aluminum, so common in the 1960's when the copper pricing made aluminum attractive. For all you know? It's all knob and tube, or sheathed cable. Every single circuit box and every single receptacle might need an upgrade.

I live in a building from the sixties. Aluminum. Every circuit box, every unit and the main, got changed a half dozen years ago, then every receptacle a couple years later. Why? INSURANCE, As in pay up or shut up. Was it a pain in the ass? You bet, because the first electrical company didn't do it correctly, and we all lost count of the in and out of electricians.

To this day, when I vacuum? I run a heavy duty power cord OUT my door to the hallway ( different circuit box ) . If I don't, and the lights are on and the computer is plugged in and god forbid I have a tv on? I will "break " a circuit and have to wait for the Mac to reboot. So.........I use the building power.

I love you fixture, however …My daughter lived in a very old, multi apartment building in a dense
lay populated area. She called to tell me the wall felt “hot” near an electrical outlet. I said grab your things, get out and call the fire dept. The owner was cited for a code violation and had to get the wiring fixed. You may not feel “heat”, but certainly this may require an outside expert to assess. I hope you have a smoke alarm in the room.

Neighbors gripe about all kinds of apartment problems to each other here and I have never heard of anyone blowing fuses or having electrical issues. I know three different residents who have very high tech, professional recording studios in their apartments decked out to the hilt with electronics, and they have not raised issues about electric.

Our apartment has modern wall outlets - some even have USB ports in them, though I suppose that might just be window dressing and have nothing to do with the guts in the walls. I have never blown a fuse. My electric panel here is switches, not fuses, like the home I grew up in. We run the vacuum, blender, laptops, subzero, with no problem.

We had a 240 line (am I remember correctly this is what it is called) installed for our dryer, by a licensed electrician, and it was approved of by the head of facilities here.

We are not allowed to have electric or induction ovens though -- there is not a high enough electric supply in the building for everyone to do so. This is not uncommon in old Manhattan coops. Our building was required by the city to upgrade our gas lines two years ago. We looked into converting to electric instead and it literally cost 10 times as much so we did not do it. (Environmentalists have their head in the clouds if they think they are going to convert NYC to induction. There just isn't enough money to do so.)

Are the incandescent bulbs an off-brand or a big brand like GE and Sylvania? Are they the right wattage for the fixture?

I've removed the bulbs and see a white substance that had dripped down the exterior of the bulb. I just remembered, I had my office painted while I was out of town and draped a large piece of plastic over the chandelier to protect it. I assumed the painter would bring his own lights. Maybe he used the chandelier while it was covered with plastic! Perhaps the culprit of the drips and browning?

@apple_pie_order The bulbs are 40 watt each. Bulbrite brand. I got them at a specialty lighting store in Manhattan that does not carry hardware store brands like GE or Phillips.

I have many antique chandeliers in my home, all using these kinds of bulbs and these are the only ones that have discolored or had drips.

I like your fixture, it's fine where you have it, and if all that's wrong is the bulbs are discoloring from normal use, I'll be happy for you.

When I moved into my mid-1980s-built condo apartment, all the electric looked good from the outside. Obviously a breaker box and not a fuse box (I remember those!) at that point. Nevertheless, corners had been cut. For example, the microwave was not on a dedicated circuit. There was an outlet on the same circuit, but of course I couldn't use it when the microwave was on. I didn't know what else might be lurking behind the walls, so when I did my reno, everything came down to the studs and all new wiring was installed.

From your description it sounds like the original electrical update in your building (and any following ones) was handled well, which is good thing.

Sometimes wiring gets old and gives out, though. That's what had happened in the nearly-a-fire incident I described earlier. So I'd at least keep an eye on it.

Thanks for photos. Unlabelled bulbs are often cheap off-brand bulbs. Try changing the bulbs to some name-brand bulbs you may still have. Is the rewired fixture rated for 25, 40 or 60 Watt bulbs?

My last batch of GE chandelier bulbs is ink-stamped with the lumens on the glass and the silvery (not brassy) metal base has a stamped label with "GE" as the first two letters.

Edited since we were posting at the same time: Bulbrite is a well established brand not carried in my area. But just try changing the bulbs and seeing if the problem occurs again soon. If the bulbs got hotter than usual when the painters covered them while painting, that could have added to the deposition of brown stuff. Alternatively, take them to the Manhattan shop where you bought them and ask. Emailing them with photos followed by a phone call may be quicker.

Good to know that Bulbrite is a well established brand. I have a box full of them when I went on an incandescent shopping spree!