Litacharms – and other oddities (Lite-a-charm)

I am crazy about mechanical charms, any of the brilliant moving miniature masterpieces that replicate the workings of their larger counterparts – but Litacharms are beyond even that. Made from the late 1950’s to the early 60’s these are rare as hens teeth, the novelty soon wore off and the expense to purchase was (and still is ) prohibitive. They light buy attaching watch batteries to the little lights used in model trains, and come in a wide variety of hollow items. I have dreams of owning this classic example of a vintage charm that lights up – now on ebay but I think it’ll have to be when the seller doesn’t know what they have. I’ve been lucky to find about a dozen that way, and repaired some as well as sent the collection to Debbie to have a jeweler work on. These charms work on a small watch or hearing aid battery, and the lights can be replaced with small wattage lights from a train model. In the catalog I have it says that the phone will also ring but I have yet to find one that still does. here are some examples from the charm treasures catalog in the 1950’s.