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ELECTRIC CHRISTMAS LIGHTS
1950-1959

Editor's Notes about the 1950s-1970s Old Christmas Tree Lights Pages:

This chapter and the ones that follow are attempts to reconstruct of Bill Nelson's original chapters on Christmas lighting in the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s. Unfortunately, they were lost when Bill passed away and his brother George took over the site in 2004. In addition, Bill was just learning FrontPage, and he often made mistakes that caused his photos not to link up properly when he changed servers, so a number of his photos went missing during his lifetime. In many cases, only the thumbnail survived; in some not even that. We have done an exhaustive search for the missing photos and restored them when we could. But to make these pages more readable, we have deleted descriptions of photos that are not shown. If you are researching this period and wish to see even those descriptions, please visit the 2003 version of this site.

 


Many of the lighting outfits from this era can be hard to identify, as the heavy percentage of foreign-made lights makes research difficult. The vast majority of the Japanese and Italian producers of these sets are no longer in business, and the company and factory production records have been lost. Presented here is a small selection of the Christmas lights available during the 1950-1960 time period, with as much information about them as possible. It was also during this time that the Italian-made mini lights started becoming popular, and began their evolution into the miniature lights that Americans predominately use to light their trees today. This section will present information about these sets as well...
 

A popular set of lights from the early 50s is pictured here. Called the Alpine Village set, these lights are but one example of the imported house-type lights and covers available during this time. Village or "Putz" scenes under the Christmas tree had been po pular since the earliest times, but lighted houses on the tree itself were a later trend. This set is from Japan, and the houses are made of cardboard with mica and crushed glass glitter. Although not shown in the picture, the outfit came complete with a sub-miniature based 10 light string.
(Note: More photos of this set and a similar set are available on the Papa Ted's Place archive here)

Sorry, the big version of this photo has been lost

 

1952 Ring-A-Lites, made in Florida, New York. A product of the LECO Electric Manufacturing Company. The set is a typical miniature base C-6 outfit, with black plastic sockets and a high quality vinyl covered cord. More to come on this company! 

 

Here is a typical set of C-7 candelabra based lamps from Dialco, a company that more often made indicator light bulbs than Christmas lights. For a few years in the 1950s the company sold Christmas lights like these, but were never involved in Holiday lighting in a very big way. From the collection of Scott Sutter.

Sorry, the big version of this photo has been lost

Sorry, the big version of this photo has been lost

 

Japanese lantern lights had been popular since the beginning of the figural light era in the 1920s, both for use on Christmas trees and as party and festival lighting. Falling out of favor during the years of World War II, the lights made a brief comeback in the 1950s and 60s. This set of outdoor party lights is from Amico, a division of the NOMA company. The lights are quite large, and have an intermediate base size. The outfit comes with an outdoor quality light string as well.
Unfortunately the large version of this image has been lost.

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