Mazda-Belvu / Compagnie des Lampes

The French Compagnie des Lampes, established in 1921, extended the Mazda name from lighting lamps to electronic tubes. Its Paris head office is documented at 41 rue de La Boëtie in 1923, at number 54 on the same street in 1925, and at 29 rue de Lisbonne in 1931. By the latter date it also had plants at Ivry-Port and Issy-les-Moulineaux. An advertisement preserved in a museum collection shows the breadth of the Mazda range: receiving valves in European and American types, miniature series, transmitting triodes, tetrodes and pentodes, cathode-ray tubes and vacuum capacitors. The same name appearing on lighting and radio products does not mean that all of them came from one production line or one site.

The history of the Mazda-Belvu name also runs through Radio-Belvu. In April 1954 the formation of the Compagnie industrielle française des tubes électroniques, or CIFTÉ, was announced. It was intended to bring together the resources and factories of Compagnie des Lampes Mazda and Radio-Belvu for electronic tube production. A valve marked Mazda, Mazda-Radio or Mazda-Belvu must therefore be read in the context of its period: a trade name, a participating company and the actual maker did not necessarily coincide. The collected records show the Mazda-Belvu name in 1970 and Mazda Électronique in 1975, without making those dates applicable to every individual model. The variety of markings traces a French industry spanning lighting, radio, transmission and television; identifying a particular example also requires its type, packaging and any factory codes.