This archive of Bill Nelson's 2001 web site was provided by Fred Fox and is sponsored by:
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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 The Timeline, page 2 |
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DATE | SIGNIFICANT EVENT | CLICK TO ENLARGE PICTURE |
1922 | The round globe lamps are discontinued by General Electric, in favor of the now popular cone shape. | |
1922 | The Japanese begin offering huge quantities of figural lamps molded in milk glass. Paint adhered better to this glass, and when it did flake off the light was still a bit more attractive than the clear glass type. These milk glass lights did not have the superior detail of the Austrian and German lamps, but due to the fact that they were machine-made, their cost was far less. Within a few years, the Japanese figurals dominated the market. | |
1923 | Lester Haft, an employee of the C.D. Wood Electric Company, invented the "Tri-Plug" or "Tachon" connector for Christmas lights. It was intended to facilitate the interconnection of several strands of lights. There were two versions, one for the familiar bladed plugs and the earliest form for screw-in type connectors. The bladed plug form is pictured here. | |
1924 | The smooth cone lamps by General Electric and Westinghouse are replaced by the slightly smaller ribbed or textured variety. These lamps continued to be made, virtually unchanged, until the early 1970s. | |
1925 | A trade association is formed by 15 of the firms then engaged in Christmas lighting manufacture. All of these companies also held licenses for the Tri-Plug connection device. The trade group is named The National Outfit Manufacturing Association, or NOMA. | |
1926 | The above named trade association members officially merged into a single company, becoming the now-famous NOMA Electric Corporation. It was the largest Christmas lighting company in the world, and is still in business today. | |
1926 | Eugene Kukla invented a small wooden bead, usually painted red (and sometimes, but rarely, found in green and even blue) that was attached below the outfit light sockets and served to hold the lamp upright on tree branches. It was a common but incorrect belief that Christmas light bulbs would burn longer in an upright position. NOMA became the owner of the rights to manufacture the beads through the 1926 merger, and trademarked them as "Berry Beads". | |
1927 | General Electric first used the large, intermediate size base for their new outdoor Christmas light bulbs. The outfits consisted of 7 lamps, and were wired in parallel so that the failure of a single lamp would not affect the rest. The earliest of these lights are round, but by 1928 they were the familiar swirled or flame shape. Also, the early lamps were painted on the outside, but later issues feature a scratchproof inside color. These lamps are still made today, although they are once again smooth rather than textured, and the color is on the outside. It is interesting to note that General Electric and the various Edison Electric distribution companies sponsored many neighborhood "decorating with color-light" contests in an effort to induce sales of the new outfits. Their strategy worked quite well, as within several years communities all over the United States held friendly decorating competitions at Christmastime. | |
1928 | General Electric offered the first mass marketed parallel wired candelabra base indoor lighting outfits. These sets had a distinct advantage: when a lamp burnout occurred it would not affect the rest of the lights. Conversely, a major disadvantage of the outfits was their high manufacturing cost. Parallel wired indoor lighting sets did not become popular until after the end of World War II. | |
1932 | General Electric offered bell shaped lamps for the first time. These are called by collectors "MAZDA Bells". | |
1935 | General Electric introduced their new candle shaped lamps. These lamps had a major disadvantage in that the filaments often burned quite close to the glass envelope, creating a circular burn spot in the paint of the lamp. | |
1939 | March of this year saw the formation of NOMA Electric Company Limited in the United Kingdom, a company still in business and still manufacturing Christmas lights today. See the links page for more information on this company. | |
1945 | General Electric drops the use of the trademark name MAZDA on its light bulbs. | |
1946 | Sylvania first introduced their fluorescent Christmas lights. An unattractive milky white in the box, they glow with wonderful pastel colors when power is applied. The sets were expensive, selling for $6.95 (around $50.00 today), and were not big sellers. | |
1946 | NOMA first markets their famous Bubble Lights. Unable to hold a patent on them, many other companies offer their own bubbling light sets by 1948. | |
1950 | This year saw the introduction of the now universal miniature or "Fairy Lights". First produced in Italy, other countries soon followed, including Germany, Holland and Japan. The earliest of these sets have no bases and are direct wired into the light string. Later sets used tiny screw-in bases, with companies finally progressing to the familiar plastic base push-in lamps. | |
1951 |
General Electric switches to the use of aluminum for their lamp bases. Most of the other lighting companies soon follow. |
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1952 | The sale of figural lights dwindles, and it will not be long before they are no longer offered for sale. | |
1953 | Several companies offer "expanded" series wired light sets, consisting of 15-20 miniature base lamps that were smaller than the traditional cone lamps. They did not remain on the market long, as the midget or "Fairy" lights were gaining in popularity. | |
1955 | This year saw the first widespread appearance of "Twinkling Lamps", candelabra based units with the flasher built in to the lamp. Introduced in Japan, General Electric and Westinghouse soon offered their own varieties, both with transparent paint. The earliest of the flashing lamps have a larger globe size than normal, and have inside, solid color paint. | |
1956 | Low-voltage transformer outfits appear on the market. These were high-quality outfits, and were run from a transformer, which to some made decorating a bit difficult. They sold for about $7.00 a set, which was expensive for the time, and was probably one reason they disappeared from the market quickly. | |
1958 | General Electric first offers the globe shaped Lighted Ice bulbs. A popular offering, these lamps can still be found today. | |
1970 | By this time, almost all Christmas lighting outfits are foreign made. NOMA is no longer the major company it once was, and Americans are lighting their trees almost exclusively with imported miniature lights. | |
END OF CATEGORY 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 |
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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