Christmas ornaments have an N.C. connection

For several decades of American history, Gastonia, N.C., laid claim to being “America’s Christmas Ornament Capital.” 

Writing for Our State magazine, Jeremy Markovich told the story. In the early 1960s, Marshall Rauch was the head of Pyramid Mills Company in Gastonia, which primarily manufactured kite cord and crochet thread. One day in 1962, Rauch received a telephone call from out of the blue. “This is Bill.” 

“He knew lots of guys named Bill,” Markovich said. “The conversation started off normally enough. How’s the family? How’s your golf game? Then Bill had a question. He’d seen some Japanese trinkets – little fake apples – that had been wrapped in satin string.” 

“Could Rauch’s mill wrap a Styrofoam ball the same way? If you can do it, Bill said, we’re going to do a lot of business together. Finally, Rauch asked the important question: ‘Which Bill is this?’ Bill Spiegel, said the man. Of Chicago. Of the Spiegel catalog.” 

(The Spiegel company had been founded in 1865 by Joseph Spiegel, a German immigrant. By the time Bill Spiegel reached out to phone Marshall Rauch nearly 100 years later, Spiegel was tallying annual sales of more than $200 million.)

 

“Rauch committed to Spiegel without being sure if he could pull it off,” Markovich wrote. “After weeks of trial and error, a plant superintendent (Wade Fowler) finally visualized the solution (during a nap).” 

“Rauch ordered new equipment, and soon Rauch’s plant was cranking out hundreds of thousands of satin ornaments. The Spiegel order doubled Pyramid’s profits,” Markovich said.

 

“Rauch not only figured out how to wrap an ornament in satin thread, but he also patented the process.” 

“The timing was perfect,” Markovich wrote. “Aluminum Christmas trees were in vogue, and the rotating color wheel that lit the tree made traditional glass ornaments appear dull. Satin ones, however, shimmered.”

Rauch’s “Satin-Sheen” brand became the market leader.

 

“The company became Rauch Industries in 1965 and grew steadily,” Markovich said. “Rauch opened showrooms in Atlanta, New York, Charlotte and California as well as a retail outlet in Gastonia.” 

“He expanded into glass ornaments, Santa suits, garlands, icicles and fake snow, which buyers liked, because they could get all of their Christmas merchandise from one company.” 

“At one point, Rauch’s factories were making a million ornaments a day. Rauch became the world’s largest manufacturer of glass and satin ornaments, and his products were sold in every big chain store in the country.” 

“By the time Rauch sold his company in 1995 for $51 million, the Christmas ornament industry had already started moving to China, and there hasn’t been any mass production in the United States in more than a decade,” Markovich said.

Vintage Satin-Sheens are now collectibles. It’s not too late to start raking them in.

 

Marshall Rauch, now 98, was born on Long Island, N.Y. He went to Duke University in 1940 and played varsity basketball for Coach Eddie Cameron. Later, he was elected to the North Carolina Senate and served from 1967-90. 

These days, he stays busy counseling a grandson, Julian Rauch, who has multiple business interests in Gastonia. 

(Julian is the former Appalachian State University placekicker who made the game-winning field goal in the Mountaineers’ legendary 2007 upset of the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor.)

 If there’s a commemorative ornament of that monumental event, I would surely like to have one to display prominently on my “Spartan Green” Christmas tree.