So, I have had the good fortune of being shown an industrial tube rectifier used to supply power to a department store. This mother is about 1 metre tall, and it took 4 of them attached to two ship sized diesel generators (the ones you find on large boats) to supply a rather large department store. I think they went out of use in the mid 70's.
They have 4 of them used in the electrical boxes, and one is NOS in the original packaging, which was never used. They haven't moved since being deactivated because the property in question does not want to pay the fees for disposing of such a large amount of mercury, so instead they keep them behind lock and key.
Here is a picture of one of them installed.
Remember, 1m tall from base of glass to the top, thats over 39 inches. The whole assembly was a bit over 6 feet tall.
