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Sales of tinsel icicles and the less-messy tinsel garlands are up 40% compared to last year at Brite Star Manufacturing Co, the only major U.S. manufacturer of icicles. Richard Kinderman, Brite Star's executive vice president and a third-generation tinsel maker, says he has the recession to thank: Historically, economic downturns result in tinsel upturns, he says, because consumers seem more interested in simple and inexpensive traditions. A 1,000-count box of tinsel costs less than $2.Mr. Kinderman's grandfather, Israel, started making tinsel in the 1950s in a factory on the south side of Philadelphia, which by family estimates has produced enough tinsel to reach the moon and back. His father, the late Sandy, was known as the King of Tinsel. Today, Brite Star has about 80% of the U.S. tinsel icicle market, with the rest imported, mainly from China, and sold under private labels.Tinsel, which comes from the old French word estincele, meaning sparkle, dates by some accounts to the 1600s and by others to the 1840s, when a silversmith started hammering silver, shredding it and putting it on a tree.It has since evolved. Silver became too precious and was replaced by lead-based film. Lead was found to be a health hazard, and was replaced by polyvinyl chloride. The plastic is rolled paper thin, treated to give it a silver look and sliced 1/16th of an inch wide and 18 inches long. Some people actually miss the lead version for aesthetic reasons because it was shinier and heavier, and didn't cling to fingers and sweaters. Mrs. Walbert used to save it year after year, picking each strand off the branches and wrapping it around paper towel tubes to keep the tinsel from getting bent and crinkled.
