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CLICK HERE FOR THE TABLE OF CONTENTS PAGE AND LINKS TO ALL PAGES ON THIS SITE TABLE OF CONTENTS HISTORY THE TIMELINE MANUFACTURER'S HISTORIES THE PATENT PAGES THE PRE-ELECTRIC ERA VINTAGE ADVERTISING THE LIGHT SET GALLERIES RELATED LINKS LIGHTING OUTFITS: 1940-1950, page 2 The amazing bubble lights were THE lights to have during the end of the 1940s. Millions upon millions of them were made. "Invented" by Carl Otis in the late 1930s, NOMA was not able to produce them until the latter part of the 40s due to Wartime restrictions and materials shortages. The history of their invention is an interesting story-and a complicated one as well (which explains the quotes around the word invented): In addition to looking at the information in this section, you can CLICK HERE to learn more about the history and invention of the bubbling Christmas light, and CLICK HERE for the bubbling light identification page.
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In 1946, NOMA first marketed their soon-to-be-famous famous Bubble Lites in the book-type box pictured here. Carl Otis, an accountant at Montgomery Ward, actually "invented" the bubbling light in 1938. He sold the rights to NOMA later that same year, but the Company was unable to market them until after the War, in 1946. Consisting of a glass tube filled with 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. As shown in the close-up picture on the left, 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 1948 production bubble lite, and for a cutaway of the earlier NOMA prototype bubbler, CLICK HERE. |
Outside of Box |
Inner Flap |
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The Lights |
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Close-up of Bubble Lite |
AN INTERESTING FACT: Although not shown in the patent drawings, the NOMA biscuit style bubble light was originally intended to have an easily replaceable bulb. The top and bottom halves of the light were held together with metal clips, which allowed for disassembly. The bottom half of the biscuit which contained the lamp was actually made by The Matchless Electric Company, maker of the famous Matchless Stars. It is made of a very different plastic than NOMA used for the top half of the light. You'll easily be able to spot the difference-the Matchless plastic has a satin finish, while the NOMA plastic is quite shiny. In the pictures, the complete bubble light is missing its clips, and has been glued together by a previous owner. The other picture is a close up of the Matchless-produced bottom half with bulb. The Matchless plastic is of a much deeper color than is the NOMA material. The center picture is a cutaway view of the prototype NOMA bubbler. |
Note: This is an archive of the late Bill Nelson's "Antique Christmas Light" web site as it existed in 2001. Except for contact information, link updates, and some information that has been lost, we have attempted to keep the text and illustrations as Bill presented them. However, the original pages included much outdated HTML code and graphic conventions, so we have done a lot of work "behind the scenes" to bring you this archive. Consequently:
OldChristmasTreeLights? and FamilyChristmasOnline? are trademarks of Breakthrough Communications? (www.btcomm.com).
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