Nobody builds Violet Wands. What a few (not too many as it turns out) manufacturers do build are devices for other purposes, which. when used for electrical play in the SM scene, are called “Violet Wands”. There are several devices available from one manufacturer, which are similar to Violet Wands as we know them, but have quite different characteristics and looks.
Everything else on the market is or was a unit from the cosmetic and medical field (some say “quack”, but Tefra and Holo Electron as well as their clients would be very offended).
In 1892, Nicola Tesla, the man we owe (among other things) the development of AC household electricity to, traveled through Europe, lecturing. He met with Paul Marie Oudin and Jacques-Arsène d’Arsonval in Paris where they discussed ways of building electro-therapeutic devices.
Tesla and Paul Oudin designed the first device together. Oudin then built the first “violet ray” device (though the name wasn’t used yet at that time) and wrote an article on using it to cure skin disorders the next year. The device was first presented at the World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago in 1893 among Tesla’s inventions on display (he also illuminated more light bulbs with AC at that fair than the whole city of Chicago had at the time).
Jacques-Arsène d’Arsonval built his own devices and used them for therapeutic purposes.
Beginning in the second decade of the 20th century, many companies were producing these devices, especially in Germany, but also in the UK, Austria, France and the US (and probably a few other countries).
Renulife, Fitzgerald, Fisher, Bleadon-Dun Co. and Master Appliances, Inc. were some of the US manufacturers and the devices were promoted as cure for most everything imaginable.
Beginning in the 1940s, numerous lawsuits and multiple actions by the US government/FDA made life more and more difficult for those companies in the US and they stopped producing them, the last one being Master Appliances, Inc., who gave up in 1951 (later a company called Fromm International began making the Master devices again for the cosmetic field, but has given that up in the meantime).
Electrotechnic Products aka ETP in Chicago started producing the Bleadon-Dun Violet Ray devices in 1942 for industrial use, first just as testers for the neon industry, later and up to today also as leak and pin-hole detectors, neon testers and for physics science classes. Most of their units are based on the antique medical units and, as far as their model BD-10A goes, with few changes till today. Probably with ETP’s knowledge, but no official approval, they are also being sold as healing devices.
Today ETP is the only manufacturer of electro-mechanical Violet Wands of interest to the kinky community and one of only two in the world. Société Holo Electron in Tremblay-en-France, France is the other, but their units are lot less powerful and have a cost from €600.00 up.
The ETP BD-10A is what most people know as a Violet Wand
The ETP model BD-10A is based on and looks 99% the same, as the last version of the Bleadon-Dun Co. “Violetta” Violet Ray (aka as the BD # 10) from around 1950.
I say “the last version” because there were many other incarnations of the “Violetta”. Here is the earliest one:
Instead of a plug it has a connector which screws into a socket.
Here is an ad from the February 1932 edition of “Popular Mechanics”:
The “VIOLETTA” was also sold under several other names. Sears sold it re-branded as “Energex”
Another version was this lovely one sold by CESCO in a red/brown marble color
The electrode identifies it as a Bleadon-Dun Co. unit
Forward to the 1990s, the ETP model BD-10 is the device that was first called a “Violet Wand”. There was a gentleman called Donnie Rice, who was selling it as the “Lightning Hands Violet Ray” at his EROTEC company. “Lightning Hands” were actually his words for the techniques he used with his invention, the body contact device. Today the techniques are know as indirect and reverse techniques.
I have no data as to the exact date when he began using the name “Violet Wand”, but everything indicates he was the one who coined the term. I guess he was looking for a more interesting name for the former medical units (all those were known as “violet ray devices”). Later, after Donnie’s death, EROTEC, now run by his wife Lela, changed the color of the wand housing from the common brown to a burgundy red. All the beautiful things ETP in Chicago does, if you are on their good side…
She also added a large switch, but only sold those wands for about a year and then closed Erotec.
The BD-10A is not the best, but the most-sold electro-mechanical Violet Wand (information about that and about buying a Violet Wand here).
NOVATOR in the Ukraine has been building its KORONA (“Корона”) solid state (= electronic) devices for many years, which they call D’Arsonval devices.
More recently the Chinese entered the playing field and, as with most everything electronic, now dominate the market and produce almost all solid state devices used for play. These wands are marketed as cosmetic devices to treat skin impurities and such and called D’Arsonval devices.
Most look similar to the one in the picture and are offered in various colors. There are several slightly different designs, but the internals of all these units are quite similar.
These are sold with as substantial mark-up and with or without modifications as Zeus “Twilight Wand”, Kinklab “Neon Wand”, “Mirage Violet Wand” and under a few other names.
Violet Wand vendors buy their wands from one or more of the manufacturers mentioned above, although all of the manufacturers sell their devices retail to the public. The Violet Wand sellers mark them up (20% to 600%+) and sell them, maybe or not with very slight modifications and certainly with a lot of hype, to you. If you are OK with that, go ahead. If you’d rather like to pay more reasonable prices, check out CHOOSING AND BUYING A VIOLET WAND.