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.
|
Date |
Manufacturer |
Notes |
Outside of Box |
Inside of Box |
| 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. |
 |
| 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. |
 |
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