Claim:
The first snow globe was created by accident while someone was trying to build a brighter light.
Rating:
What’s True
Erwin Perzy I, a surgical instruments mechanic in Vienna, was experimenting with a water-filled glass globe around 1900 to amplify light when added particles drifted down like snow. The “snowfall” effect appears to have been accidental, and he later turned the idea into a souvenir-style globe.
What’s False
Perzy’s accident wasn’t the earliest known example of the concept. A U.S. government report on the 1878 Paris Universal Exposition described paperweights made from water-filled hollow glass balls that produced a snowstorm-like effect when flipped.
For years, a rumor has circulated online that the first snow globe was invented by accident. According to the story, a Viennese technician supposedly tried to make a brighter lightbulb and noticed the swirling particles in a water-filled glass sphere looked like falling snow.
One Reddit post (archived) on the topic read: “snow globes were accidentally invented by a medical tool repair man. He was trying to make a brighter light bulb for operating rooms, so he tried using a water filled glass with reflective particles to do this. The effect looked like snow to him which is how he got the idea for snow globes.”
TIL that snow globes were accidentally invented by a medical tool repair man. He was trying to make a brighter light bulb for operating rooms, so he tried using a water filled glass with reflective particles to do this. The effect looked like snow to him which is how he got the idea for snow globes.
by intodayilearned
Versions of the story have been repeated in popular history articles and travel blogs, and also spread across social media platforms such as Instagram, Facebook, Reddit and X. Snopes previously investigated this claim in December 2020.
In short, the story is based on real events but is only partially accurate. While it’s true that Erwin Perzy, an Austrian surgical instruments mechanic, accidentally created one of the early snow globes around 1900, the first written description of snow globe dates back to the 1878 Paris Universal Exposition.
What the story gets right about Perzy
The story is based on real events. Erwin Perzy III, a spokesperson for the multigenerational family snow globe business, described how Erwin Perzy I, his grandfather, experimented with a water-filled glass globe to increase a bulb’s light output. He added substances meant to reflect light, and one of them (described by the family as semolina) sank slowly and reminded him of snowfall. After that, he put a small model church inside the globe, creating a recognizable early “snow globe” design.
Similarly, Erwin Perzy III told Smithsonian Magazine how his grandfather “invented this by mistake, because he wanted to make something different” and that “the improvement of the electric light bulb” was his intention. A thesis by Anne Hilker, an art law and decorative arts scholar at Mount Mary University, titled “A biography of the American snow globe: from memory to mass production, from souvenir to sign,” underscored that the first snow globe patent was issued to Erwin Perzy I.
Snow globes existed before Perzy
But the “first snow globe” framing leaves out a key piece of historical context. Long before Perzy’s experiments, an official U.S. government report on exhibits at the Paris Universal Exposition in 1878 described novelty paperweights made from “hollow balls filled with water” that included a small figure inside: a man holding an umbrella. It also noted that the balls contained a white powder that, when the object was inverted, fell to imitate a snowstorm.
(HathiTrust)
Hilker called it “the first written description of a snow globe.” Apart from that 1878 written reference, there’s also a physical example that predates Perzy: an Eiffel Tower “snow weight” linked to the 1889 Paris Exposition, held in the Bergstrom-Mahler Museum of Glass collection and viewable via Google Arts & Culture.
(Google Arts & Culture)
Therefore, even if Perzy’s “snowfall” discovery was accidental and helped launch a famous snow globe maker, the idea of a glass sphere filled with water that produces a snow-like swirl appears in the historical record earlier than his work.
In sum …
All in all, there is solid support for the claim that Perzy’s snow globe grew out of experiments to improve surgical lighting and that, according to his family, the “snow” effect was discovered by accident. But it is not accurate to describe that moment as the invention of the first snow globe. Similar water-filled glass paperweights containing white powder that swirled when turned over were described in connection with the 1878 Paris Universal Exposition, decades before Perzy’s early-1900s snow globes.
For related reading, we’ve also investigated claims that some snow globes contain ethylene glycol — an antifreeze ingredient that can be dangerous to pets.
Sources
– YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6wiqF7_keYs. Accessed 23 Dec. 2025.
Evon, Dan. “Was the Snow Globe Invented by Accident?” Snopes, 15 Dec. 2020, https://www.snopes.com//fact-check/snow-globe-invented-accidentally/.
Geschichte Schneekugel. https://schneekugel.at/geschichte. Accessed 23 Dec. 2025.
Hilker, Anne. A Biography of the American Snow Globe: From Memory to Mass Production, from Souvenir to Sign. 2014. repository.si.edu, https://repository.si.edu/items/72501c4f-7724-4f91-8bc8-ce6b6a10940c.
———. A Biography of the American Snow Globe: From Memory to Mass Production, from Souvenir to Sign. 2014. repository.si.edu, https://repository.si.edu/items/72501c4f-7724-4f91-8bc8-ce6b6a10940c.
Lee, Jessica. “Snow Globes May Contain Antifreeze Ingredient, Ethylene Glycol, Dangerous to Pets.” Snopes, 24 Dec. 2024, https://www.snopes.com//fact-check/pets-antifreeze-snow-globes/.
“Snowdome Weight, Eiffel Tower – Léon & Levy.” Google Arts & Culture, https://artsandculture.google.com/asset/snowdome-weight-eiffel-tower-léon-levy/MgHSayX2eeFc2g. Accessed 23 Dec. 2025.
“The Family Company That Invented the Snow Globe.” BBC News, 23 Dec. 2013. Business. www.bbc.com, https://www.bbc.com/news/business-25298507.
United States. Commissioners to the Paris Universal Exposition, 1878. Reports of the United States Commissioners to the Paris Universal Exposition, 1878. With Getty Research Institute, Washington [D.C.] : Government Printing Office, 1880. Internet Archive, http://archive.org/details/reportsofuniteds03unit_0.
