Angel chimes
Christmas decoration with bells, powered by the heat from candles
Angel chimes are a form of Christmas decoration popular in Europe and North America. They apparently have the same origins as the Christmas pyramid, which functions on the same principle. They differ from these, primarily, in being mass-produced from metal and might have bell-ringing angels, whereas Christmas pyramids are usually crafted from wood and do not necessarily have bells.
Function
Angel chimes have candle holders at the base which provide heat which turns a turbine at the top, which powers a series of trumpet-holding angel figures which "fly" around in a circle, striking bells beneath them. They usually have other decorative motifs, such as the Star of Bethlehem or a creche.
History
The earliest known patent for an angel chime was filed in 1905 by Walter Stock of the German toy firm Adrian & Stock. These early pre–World War II German chimes were typically made of tin and featured lithographed designs.
During the mid-20th century, candle-powered rotating chimes became popular across Scandinavia, where the style evolved into what is widely recognized today as the classic “Swedish angel chime.” For several decades, production of these Scandinavian metal chimes was carried out by SMP (Scandinavian Metal Product), which manufactured versions based on the traditional rotating candle-heat mechanism.
According to company records, the full manufacturing operations, tooling, and associated production rights for the Angel Chimes product were transferred from SMP to Aras Metal in Turkey in 2013. Following this transfer, Aras Metal continued manufacturing using the original Scandinavian molds and design specifications.
The public source identifies “Angel chimes” as christmas decoration with bells, powered by the heat from candles. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Angel, chimes and Christmas.
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Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Apr 14, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q3365923. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1905 and 2013.
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This entry incorporates text from “Angel chimes” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.