In
1946, NOMA first mass-marketed their famous Bubble Lites in the book-type
box pictured below. As we mentioned before, Carl Otis, an accountant at
Montgomery Ward, actually "invented" the bubbling light in 1938.
(CLICK HERE for the complete story). He sold
the rights to NOMA later that same year, but the Company was unable to
market them in any quantity until after the war in 1946.
Consisting of a glass tube filled with a
chemical called
methylene chloride and a plastic base that holds a light bulb in close
contact with the tube, the units bubble merrily whenever heated. The
chemical has such a low boiling point that it will even bubble from the
heat of your hand or the sunlight entering through a window. The liquid in
the tubes comes tinted in several colors, with purple being the rarest as
it was only sold for the first three years of production. While collectors
desire this purple color due to its rarity, the fluid is usually so dark
that it does not show the bubbling action to best effect.
As shown in the
close-up picture below, the earliest bubble lights have glass slugs within
the tubes, to help activate and spread out the bubbles. Soon it was
discovered that the slugs were not really needed, and after 1949 they were
no longer used. Lights without the glass tubes, however, do tend to have
larger and unevenly produced bubbles. Bubble Lites quickly became the best
selling and most profitable Christmas lights of their day.
CLICK HERE for a cutaway view of
a NOMA production Bubble Lite, and for a cutaway of the earlier NOMA prototype
bubbler, CLICK HERE.
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First NOMA Bubble Lite
box style, 1946 |
Inner Flap of book-style box |
Contents of box, showing
9 lights, cord and clips |
Close-up of 1946 NOMA
Bubble Lite |
Heavily advertised in 1946, NOMA's Bubble
Lites were THE thing to have for a properly decorated tree. Other lighting
companies were taken by surprise, but by 1947 were offering their own sets
of bubbling lights in an effort to capitalize on the phenomenal sales
being enjoyed by NOMA.
Date |
Manufacturer |
Notes |
Outside of Box |
Inside of Box |
1947 |
NOMA |
A set of
replacement bubbling lights, advertised to encourage the consumer to
replace their "ordinary" light bulbs with these. this
particular set has several of the very rare NOMA base half colors:
pink (far left), cobalt blue (second from left), blood red (third
from left) and white (fourth from left). |
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1947 |
Paramount |
The outfit pictured
here is from Paramount, and is an example of their attempt to
circumvent NOMA's bubble light patent. The lights were originally
called Kristal Snow Animated Candles, but Paramount soon changed the name of
their lamps to "bubbling lights"-close to NOMA's "Bubble Lites". The
tubes are filled with oil and pumice instead of the methylene
chloride used by their competitor, and the oil bubbles with very
fine, tiny bubbles that are pretty when seen up close, but the
effect is lost on a Christmas tree when seen at a distance. As a
result, these lamps were not at all popular and are very hard to
find today. |
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1947 |
Goodlite |
Shooting Star bubbling lights were offered in 1947-1948 by Goodlite,
in an attempt to circumvent NOMA's patents. The tubes offer a unique
bubbling action, due to the two different liquids they contain. The
bubbles rise rapidly through a thin liquid, then slowly fall through
the thicker liquid at the bottom. The effect is strikingly similar
to fireworks display, but sadly is lost on a large tree. The lights
were not good sellers, and as soon as NOMA lost their patent on
bubbling lights, Peerless changed their chemicals to the standard
methylene chloride. Genuine "shooters" can be identified by the two
distinct liquids in the tube, similar to the appearance of oil and
water. These lights are extremely rare, and are highly sought after
by collectors today. |
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1947 |
Peerless |
This
set by Peerless is an example of candelabra based Shooting Stars.
The color in the shooting liquid is most often found faded to clear,
and this set, which has managed to retain its color, is exceedingly
rare. |
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1947 |
Royal |
First
offered for sale in 1947, these bubbling lights by Royal were good
sellers. Royal took great pains not to step on NOMA's patents by
calling their offering "Sparkling Royalites", rather than bubble
lights. The plastic bases are shaped similarly to NOMA's product,
but a close look reveals several differences in the base shape. The
earliest lights, offered in the red box, came with loose spring
clips to attach to the tree, but the springs had a tendency to twist
on the tree and upright positioning was difficult. |
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1948 |
Royal |
Later
Royal offerings like these in the blue box came with clips
permanently attached to the sockets. These lights originally sold
for $2.69 and were somewhat less expensive than NOMA's Bubble Lites,
but were of lesser quality as well. Production runs for the first
few years featured non-matching color base parts as shown above,
while later issues were made with solid base halves. |
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1948 |
Royal |
Here is Royal's offering of
candelabra based bubbling lights, referred to by collectors today as
"Royal Crowns." Commonly sold with the solid color bases as featured
in this set, collectors are always on the lookout for those lights
that have mixed base colors like the example shown to the right.
Few boxes for this set survive today, and this example is an outfit
which has weathered the years fairly well. To this collector's
knowledge, the outfit was offered only in red boxes. |
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1948 |
Miller |
The
Sylvania fluorescent light bulbs were incorporated into outfits by
several lighting companies. This set is from Miller, and is quite
hard to find. |
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1948 |
Royal |
This
fluorescent outfit by Royal is easier to find than is the set
directly above. |
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