By Curtiss Wayne Andrews
Collectors love a clean origin story.
We want to know who made the first blow mold, what year it appeared and which company deserves credit for transforming a hollow piece of plastic into a glowing Christmas icon. But manufacturing history is rarely that tidy. The further back we look, the more complicated—and more interesting—the story becomes.
That is especially true of the extraordinary illuminated angel commonly associated with Raylite and Paramount. Often dated to the mid-1940s and sometimes described in collector circles as a 1950s vacuum-formed decoration, it has acquired an almost mythical reputation. For some collectors, it is the “holy grail” of illuminated Christmas figures.
It is also a perfect object through which to examine an important historical question:
What exactly was a “blow mold” before companies such as Union Products, Empire Plastics, Beco and Poloron filled American lawns with glowing Santas, candles, choir children and plastic animals? It’s a subject I wish I would have delved more deeply into inside my book The Glow That Won’t Go Out, but editorial & page count choices had to be made.
The answer requires us to separate the collector’s definition of a blow mold from the manufacturing process that produced one.
“Blow Mold” Has Become a Collector’s Umbrella Term
In today’s collecting community, blow mold is frequently used as shorthand for nearly any vintage hollow-plastic holiday decoration illuminated from within. The phrase evokes a familiar object: a lightweight plastic figure, usually made in two-part tooling, with a visible seam and an opening for a light bulb.
That is understandable collector language, but it is not precise manufacturing language.
Several different processes contributed to the development of illuminated plastic Christmas decorations:
- Blow molding forms a hollow object by inflating a heated tube or preform of plastic inside a closed mold.
- Vacuum forming, a type of thermoforming, heats a flat plastic sheet and draws it against a mold using vacuum pressure. It commonly produces a thin shell with a relatively open or flat back.
- Injection molding forces molten plastic into a closed mold. It was widely used for ornaments, light fixtures, toys, religious figures, candoliers and small decorative components.
- Compression molding and assembled fabrication were also used for early plastics and electrical novelties.
To a collector viewing the finished decoration from across a room, these objects may belong to the same glowing family. Technically, however, they can have very different manufacturing histories.
That distinction lies at the center of the debate surrounding the Raylite angel.
Blow Molding Began Long Before the Lawn Santa
Blow molding did not originate with Union Products or Empire. Nor was it invented specifically for Christmas decorations.
The fundamental idea came from glassblowing: place a hot, workable material inside a mold and use air pressure to force it against the mold’s interior surface. As manufacturers experimented with early plastics, inventors began adapting similar concepts.
A frequently cited early milestone is an 1881 American patent associated with the Celluloid Novelty Company for forming hollow objects from cellulose material. Later accounts also point to experiments involving cellulose acetate during the 1930s. These early processes helped establish the basic principle, but they were far removed from the efficient polyethylene machinery that eventually produced millions of holiday figures.
The most important transition toward modern commercial plastic blow molding came in the late 1930s. Inventors Enoch Ferngren and William Kopitke developed an early commercial machine for producing hollow plastic containers. Their technology became associated with the Hartford-Empire Company in 1938. The Smithsonian holds an early plastic bottle connected to this pioneering development.
This history matters because the first commercially significant blow-molded plastic objects were primarily containers, not Christmas decorations.
The process was useful for bottles because it could create a seamless or nearly seamless hollow body with a relatively narrow opening. During the 1940s, however, plastic blow molding remained limited by the available materials, machinery and control systems.
The postwar rise of polyethylene changed everything.
Low-density polyethylene was developed during the 1930s and commercialized around the beginning of World War II. High-density polyethylene and polypropylene entered commercial use during the 1950s. These materials were durable, lightweight, weather resistant, translucent and increasingly economical—exactly the qualities needed for bottles and, eventually, illuminated outdoor figures.
By the time the classic American lawn blow mold emerged, its manufacturing technology had already spent decades developing in the packaging industry.
Before Polyethylene: America’s First Glowing Plastic Christmas Figures
While industrial engineers were improving hollow-container production, Christmas manufacturers were pursuing a different goal: creating small illuminated novelties for the home.
Before the familiar freestanding lawn figures of the 1960s, Christmas decorations included illuminated cardboard houses, metal reflectors, glass ornaments, cellophane scenes, composition figures, molded hard-plastic novelties and translucent plaques.
Many of these were designed for indoor use. They rested on tables, hung on walls, topped trees or served as night lights. Some combined light, music and movement. They were not necessarily blow molded, but they established the visual language later inherited by blow-molded decorations:
- A translucent plastic figure illuminated from within
- A concealed electrical cord and lamp
- Three-dimensional molded facial and clothing details
- A holiday character presented as a glowing household object
- A decoration intended to be admired both lighted and unlighted
This is the world in which Raylite Electric Corporation and its Paramount line operated.
Raylite, Paramount and the Illuminated-Novelty Business
Raylite Electric Corporation was a New York manufacturer involved in Christmas lighting and illuminated novelties. Its products appeared under names including Raylite, Paramount, Sterling and Kliptons.
Trademark records show that the Paramount name was being used by Raylite decades before the great lawn-decoration boom. A 1951 federal trademark filing explicitly listed illuminated Christmas products such as miniature churches, musical cathedrals, Rudolph figures, altars, plaques, wise men, angels and musical angels.
That record is unusually valuable. It documents that illuminated angels were not merely later collector attributions. They were part of Raylite’s recognized commercial product category.
Raylite was also active in the highly competitive Christmas-light business. Historical accounts identify it as the maker of Paramount products and one of the significant American Christmas-light manufacturers of the period. Its 1947 “Kristal Snow” animated candles even became part of a patent dispute with industry giant NOMA.
In other words, Raylite was not a minor workshop accidentally producing a plastic angel. It participated in an established market for electrical Christmas spectacle.
The Paramount Musical Angel
The large Paramount musical angel, generally dated to approximately 1946, may be one of the most remarkable surviving objects from this transitional era.
An archival Christmas-light reference describes it as an extremely difficult piece to find. The figure could reportedly be used as a night light, a wall plaque or a Christmas-tree topper. It also incorporated a music box that played “Angels We Have Heard on High.”
That combination is extraordinary:
- molded translucent imagery;
- interior illumination;
- multiple display configurations;
- electrical construction; and
- a mechanical music box.
Rather than a simple decoration, it was a small piece of Christmas theater.
A smaller Paramount No. 63 illuminated angel is also known. Because photographs and marketplace descriptions do not always identify models correctly, collectors should be careful not to treat every Raylite or Paramount angel as the same object.
Likewise, the musical angel should not automatically be called a “1950s blow mold.” The best surviving reference places it around 1946, and the manufacturing process has not yet been conclusively documented in the archival material I have located.
Collectors sometimes describe the angel as vacuum formed, and its plaque-like design makes that interpretation plausible. But plausibility is not proof. Until an original catalog, packaging description, factory document or close physical examination establishes the method, the safest description is:
A circa-1946 Paramount/Raylite illuminated molded-plastic musical angel, often described by collectors as vacuum formed.
That wording respects both the available evidence and the limits of what we currently know.
Why Early Plastic Is So Often Misidentified
Part of the confusion comes from the vocabulary used to describe old plastics.
“Celluloid” is frequently applied to any thin, yellowed or brittle vintage plastic. Yet historical Christmas-light researchers warn that many decorations identified as celluloid are actually other types of hard plastic. Age, heat from incandescent bulbs and decades of storage can discolor and embrittle several different materials.
Visual inspection alone may not establish whether an old decoration is cellulose nitrate, cellulose acetate, polystyrene or another resin. Misidentification then spreads from an auction listing to a social-media post and eventually becomes accepted collector lore.
The same thing happens with manufacturing terminology. A hollow-looking decoration becomes a blow mold. A thin decoration becomes vacuum formed. A visible line becomes proof of a two-piece blow mold.
Those clues are useful, but they are not always decisive.
A responsible identification may require examining the back, edge profile, material thickness, trim marks, joints, lamp opening, embossed markings and tool seams. Even then, laboratory material identification or original factory literature may be necessary.
Raylite’s Later Molded-Plastic Patents
Raylite continued developing illuminated molded-plastic decorations into the 1950s.
One especially relevant design patent is Abraham Abramson’s “Illuminable Christmas Plaque,” assigned to Raylite Electric Corporation. It was filed on April 16, 1956, and patented on October 29, 1957. Related Raylite plaque designs appeared during the same period.
These patents help establish continuity between Raylite’s 1940s illuminated novelties and the plastic plaques of the later 1950s. However, a design patent primarily protects appearance. It should not automatically be read as a technical description of how the object was formed.
What the patents prove is that Raylite remained deeply invested in illuminated molded-plastic seasonal imagery.
That alone makes the company important to blow-mold history—even when a particular Raylite product was not technically blow molded.
When the Familiar Christmas Blow Mold Arrived
The outdoor polyethylene Christmas figure recognizable to modern collectors appears to have emerged during the late 1950s and early 1960s rather than the 1940s.
Beco Products, associated with Bernard Edward Company, was already making plastic decorations during the 1950s. Collector research commonly credits Beco with some of the earliest fully three-dimensional consumer Christmas blow molds, including a Santa-and-sleigh display generally dated to the early or mid-1960s. Period retail evidence places comparable Beco displays in major catalogs by 1966, although the exact “first” remains difficult to prove.
Union Products had begun operations in 1947 and initially became known for hard-plastic and injection-molded goods. Designer Don Featherstone created the company’s famous pink plastic flamingo in 1957, a key milestone in molded-plastic lawn décor.
Empire Plastics, whose history is connected to Carolina Enterprises and the Judith Novelty Sales name, also developed injection-molded and blow-molded seasonal products. Empire ultimately became one of the most recognizable names in American illuminated yard decorations.
Poloron produced especially detailed figures during the 1960s and 1970s, including choir figures and animated displays. General Foam Plastics later acquired numerous molds and continued producing familiar designs long after their original manufacturers disappeared.
These companies did not invent the underlying blow-molding process. Their achievement was adapting mature industrial technology to large, affordable, weather-resistant seasonal figures. Each will be given proper coverage on this website in the days ahead.
The Missing Link Was Not One Machine or One Company
There was no single morning when a factory switched on a machine and invented the Christmas blow mold as we know it.
The tradition developed through several overlapping histories:
- Glassblowing supplied the basic principle of expanding material inside a mold.
- Nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century plastic experiments explored hollow molded forms.
- Bottle manufacturers commercialized modern plastic blow molding during the late 1930s and 1940s.
- Electrical Christmas companies such as Raylite established a market for illuminated molded-plastic figures and plaques.
- Postwar polyethylene made larger, safer and more weather-resistant decorations practical.
- Companies including Beco, Union, Empire and Poloron turned those materials and processes into mass-market lawn décor.
The Raylite angel belongs most securely to the fourth chapter.
It may not be the first true Christmas blow mold. It may not be blow molded at all. Yet it represents something historically essential: the desire to transform a molded plastic holiday figure into a glowing presence inside the American home.
That idea predates the classic polyethylene Santa—and helps explain why the Santa was so readily embraced when he finally arrived.
Why the Dispute Is Good for the Hobby
Collectors should not fear disputes over dates, materials or processes. A healthy challenge can move the hobby away from repetition and closer to documented history.
In writing The Glow That Won’t Go Out, I have tried to preserve the stories surrounding these decorations. Preservation, however, also means remaining willing to refine those stories when patents, catalogs, advertisements, packaging or factory records provide stronger evidence.
The most useful approach is to label information honestly:
- Documented: supported by an original patent, trademark, catalog, advertisement or marked object.
- Corroborated: supported by multiple reliable secondary sources or surviving examples.
- Collector attribution: widely repeated but not yet proven by primary documentation.
- Working theory: a reasonable interpretation that remains open to correction.
Using those distinctions does not diminish the magic. It gives the objects a history strong enough to survive beyond any one book, website or collection.
The Angel’s Place in the Story
The Paramount/Raylite musical angel deserves its “holy grail” reputation because of its rarity, ingenuity and beauty.
Its importance does not depend on proving that it was the first blow mold.
It stands at the threshold between the intimate electric novelties of prewar and immediate-postwar Christmas and the large illuminated plastic figures that eventually conquered the American lawn. It combines religion, domestic light, music, molded plastic and mechanical novelty in one remarkable object.
The angel reminds us that the history of blow molds began before the objects we now call blow molds.
Long before Union’s flamingos, Empire’s Santas or Poloron’s choir children, manufacturers were already trying to make Christmas glow through plastic. The techniques changed. The materials improved. The figures grew larger and moved outdoors.
But the idea was already shining.
—Curtiss Wayne Andrews, author of The Glow That Won’t Go Out