ELECTRIC CHRISTMAS LIGHTS
1946-1950
After the War
page 3

In 1948, NOMA chose to change the style of their bubblers, perhaps in an attempt to modernize them a bit, or maybe to simply differentiate the shape from all of the NOMA competitors who shamelessly used similar "biscuit" base styles. Whatever the reason, NOMA decided on the saucer shape as pictured on the left, below. This design was extremely susceptible to heat damage due to the more confined space for the light bulb, and was discontinued once stock sold through in 1949. Most examples of this style of light that have had any use at all show at least some warping from heat stress. All NOMA advertising showing the little boy with the Santa beard is 1948 or later. The image on the right is the replacement lights box, from the 1948 NOMA catalog.

1948	Paramount	This year, Paramount began the switch from the use of oil in their bubbling tubes to methylene chloride, the same chemical in the NOMA brand bubbling lights. The box changed as well, but the overall look of the lights did not. Both oil and methylene chloride tubes were sold in this box style. This set has oil tubes.
1948	Paramount	Shown here is a side-by-side comparison of the two types of Paramount bubbling lights. On the right is the oil version, easily identified by the thick liquid in the tube as well as by the round bits of pumice visible when the light is laid flat. The pumice bits serve as the activator for the bubbling process. On the left is the regular methylene chloride version of the bubbler, identified by the absence of the pumice bits and the fact that the fluid in the tube is thin and water-like.
1948	ClemCo	An exceedingly rare set of ClemCo bubbling lights. The company offered three types of bubbling lights. The miniature base lights shown here are identical to the Goodlite brand shown on the previous page, but are not of the shooting star variety and contain regular methylene chloride. The other two types made by this company are snap-on types, made to snap over a standard C-7 type lamp. See The Bubble Light Identification Page for more information about these.
1948	Bee-Ell Electric Mfg. Co.	Belcolite, an acronym for "Bee-Ell Electric Manufacturing Company," did not make Christmas lights for very long. This is an uncommon set of C-6 type series wired lights.
1948	CheerBrite	A somewhat uncommon set of C-6 series-type Christmas lights.
1948	Park Electric	A nice little outfit packaged in an unusually attractive box. Park Electric did not make lighting outfits for long, and this set can be difficult for the collector to find today.
1948	Reliance	Reliance Spark-L-Lites are a bit harder to find than are most other types of bubbling lights. These lights are of poor quality, and are most often found with both melted tips and glue marks from where the base halves were cemented together. This sample is kindly shared with us by Kyle Sund, and is from his collection.
1948	Jack D. Fink	This countertop box of figural lamps is from Jack D. Fink and Company, Brokers-Importers, Albany, Oregon. It is marked on the bottom "Made in Occupied Japan", dating it to 1946-1952, the beginning of the waning years of figural light sales in the United States. An interesting stamp affixed to the box cover provides more information. "JIS" refers to "Japanese Industrial Standard", a quality certification system. The letter "C" refers to the fact that the product being certified is electrical in nature, and the number "7505" is the specific standard to which the product is being certified.
1948	NOMA	Beginning in 1948, NOMA marketed a multiple wired bubble light outfit as shown here. Notice that the top part of the base of these lights uses the "saucer" from the series wired set discussed at the top of this page. Anticipating huge sales for the 1948 Christmas season, NOMA produced vast quantities of these saucers only to find out that they were not suitable for the series outfits. Stuck with a large inventory of saucer halves, the Company was quite inventive in using them all the way through the 1960s.
ca 1948	Sterling	These bubbling lights were sold as a sub-brand of Paramount, and were of lesser quality that the Paramount brand was. These are miniature based "biscuit" style bubblers, an imitation of the NOMA originals.
ca 1948	LECO	This company is still in business today, although not manufacturing Christmas lights. This is a set of candelabra based lights.
ca 1948	Kas-Kel	A C-7 set of lights, rather uncommon due to the short production period.
ca 1949	Iron Fireman	This "On-A-Lite" outfit joins the collection through the kind gift of  web site visitor Karl Jenkins. This unusual outfit has special sockets that allow placement anywhere on the vinyl cord that was included with the set. An eight lamp C-7 candelabra based outfit.
ca 1949	Majestic	This set of C-7 lamps was sold throughout the late 1940s.

Welcome Page   TABLE OF CONTENTS   BACK   NEXT