ELECTRIC CHRISTMAS LIGHTS
1946-1950
After the War

General Electric dropped the name Mazda after the war, now simply referring to their lights as a General Electric product. This collector also uses World War II as the cutoff for the use of cloth covered lighting strings, as after the war, vinyl, plastic and rubber coverings were used almost exclusively. These products adhered to the metal wire much better, eliminating the fraying problem so prevalent with pre-war lighting outfits.

This was to become the "era of the bubbling light," with the introduction of NOMA's world famous Bubble Lite, it soon became the world's best selling Christmas light set. (See also The History of Bubble Lights and The Bubble Light Identification Page on this website for detailed information about the "invention" of this popular light and the various companies that sold it).

First, here are some of the lighting sets sold both before the war and after it, in much the same form as always. Remember, most lighting sets now used the new rubber, vinyl or plastic coated wires.

All of these outfits, along with many others, were sold both before and after the war. The postwar NOMA box has dropped the Mazda name on the box, and now says "For a Safe and Brighter Christmas".

Pictured here to the left are all four major kinds of "regular" Christmas light bulbs available to the postwar public. From top to bottom are theC-9 intermediate base lamp, then the C-7 candelabra, the ever popular C-6 miniature base lamp, and then the new G-14 candelabra base Glo Ray lamp. The NOMA Glo-Ray outfit, pictured below, was sold for only a few years, and by 1952, was no longer shown in the company's catalog. This era saw the beginning of the end of the C-6 lamps, as the multiple wired C-7 candelabra based lighting outfits were finally beginning to catch the favor of the Yuletide decorator. The ubiquitous C-6 lamp would, however, hang on until the mid-1970s.

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