I want to see....older Vacor

[jeeperman]

,So, Vacor marbles have been around a long time, however I am not sure I could safely say I know what old Vacor looks like. So do you have older Vacor that you have nailed down? The older the better but lets say at least pre 90's, I am familiar with the Michelangelo and the handmade Atmosphere....but what was before those? Anyone have some known older Vacor and an idea of when they were made???

[Steph]

The 1980's stuff looks fairly modern. The Galaxies were from the 1980's.  Two other names from the 1980s were Meteors and Corsairs ... I was just reminded from a bag Galen posted way back when.    

 

 

[Steph]

Sooooo .... what did they look like before that?

 

 

[Al Oregon]

Don Miller had posted these pictures back in 2003 time frame and the late Patry Denton had agreed with him on them being Vacor from the early 1990's..

[Al Oregon]

I had also saved these pictures from 2005 that someon had posted as older Vacor.  I do not know who posted.  They also fit ones we "know" from back then.

[Al Oregon]

And last, I bought these marbles from Wiilie Benoit at the Texas Show back in 2009, and he wa very confident that these were Vacors from 1950's.

[jeeperman]

Hmmm interesting, the ones from Don remind me of some of what we know as Asian today but appear to have nicer glass. And some of the speckled ones are very similar to ones I recognize but thought newer than that, so this is helpful. I hope there is more out there as I have always been curious them having been making marbles for so long. Thank you. 

[cheese]

They made marbles in the 1930s, it would be nice to see some of those if any are known. I've got a lot of '80s vacors and imperials from when I was a kid. I would have expected some of those up there to be imperials (the beachball ones in the mesh and the ones with master looking seams). Vacor made them like those too?

[cheese]

Just ran across these on ebay, talk about coincidence. Very interesting.

Here is the link and I put the pictures here to be view-able after the listing is gone.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/Rare-Early-Vacor-Marbles-100-Ct-No-0-Agata-Box-Marble/222796623239?hash=item33dfb6ad87:g:EykAAOSwBp9aXAcR

[jeeperman]

Oh now that is more what I expected......at least along those lines but that sure does not make sorting commons any easier. lol Nice find there Chuck, Thanks.

 

[Al Oregon]

Craig did good dresearch on this one.  I had not read the research before. Also, I had not looked for boxes.  I have pictures of at least one other similar box - Don M. has - probably got from Craig?

[lstmmrbls]

Sorry I completely disagree with the assumption these are Vacor. I have a box  like that.  I do not believe they are Vacor.  Not marked Vacor and no proof.  Early Vacors were clay,  and their glass marbles for many years were very crude and nothing like early Allies etc.. From a person at Vacor.  They said the earliest glass marbles were sort of a very crude cateye type? I had an email exchange that I now can not find but someone else also got very similar information about 15-20 years ago.  This is just my opinion from the research I did years ago.  I have been wrong before 

[wvrons]

Interesting !  I have no evidence who or when.  Who other than Vacor would have produced these in Mexico ? Or was a box filled by someone other than a company or at the factory ?  There were four of these same boxes together. Maybe not 1930's but 1940's or 1950's ?  Lots of changes happen over ten years or twenty years.  My guess on the marbles alone not in any box. I would have guessed Champion.  Craig knows boxes so the box must be the correct age. Did someone In Mexico buy Champion marbles and fill the boxes with them ?  Kathy has also showed me older Vacors that she got right at the factory many years ago. Which were suppose to have been made by Vacor  in the 40's-50's and they looked like definate Peltier and some were swirls. So was Vacor making these in those years or buying them from the US and maybe packaging them ?  Lots of questions and opinions ????????

[winnie]

Galen,I've gotten info about Vacor years ago from you,it was a letter of an employee of Vacor,sorry can't find it anymore,but if I remember well,I wanted to know and was wondering where all my patches that I found here in Holland came from,and I could not tell from that information that they were made by Vacor.

[Al Oregon]

Here is one post I had saved from 2005 - 

Vacor Letter

 

Letter to Marilyn Barrett – David Chamberlain had copy

Posted by Elizabeth Kenski (pinx) on Marble Mental Board Feb. 2005

Dear Marilyn Barrett:

We appreciate your interest, hereby we briefly explain the history of our factory.

We started manufacturing clay marbles in 1930, and we made one million marbles per month, four years later we started manufacturing glass marbles, just one type 'crystals' in color blue, green, ambar, and clear. At that time we had only two machines which produced 80,000 marbles daily.

Our first cat's eye marbles were made in 1944. Since then we started growing and production was just sufficient for the Mexican market.

The big step of the company was when we started exporting 25 years ago because we also were able to improve in quality to compete against other glass marble manufacturers.

The competitions puch us to develope new kinds of machine made marbles field in which we think we are the leaders now, because we offer our clients a new kind of marble every year.

We haved also improved in machinery which is made by ourselves, that's why we are able to produce twelve million marbles per day with 20 furnaces and 50 machines depending on the size and type of marble.

Nowadays, we are exporting to 35 countries and we manufacture marbles in 10 sizes from 10mm to 35mm and each size in 25 types.

[Al Oregon]

And here is a series of posts about Vacor.  Those of you that remember Jeff Hale knows that his writing grammar/spelling is not the best but he does know marbles pretty well.  There was no picture saved with theese posts but I'll look at ones that I saved again and see if I find any referred to by Jeff.

I posted a general question about Vacor’s history on the marble boards on Aug. 20, 2003.  Here are some of the responses:

Posted by brian5635:

From their website….

www.vacor.com.mx

1930: Clay marbles @ 35,000 per day in Mexico City

1934: Crystal marbles in 4 colors (blue, green, amber & clear) @ 85,000 per day

1944: Started producing the catseye marble and increased production substantially to cover the mexican market.

1964: Vacor went international. Increased variety to 60 types of marbles.

1974: Moved to Guadalajara where they are today.

2003: Employ 500 people and make over 20 million marbles each day.
 

Posted by Jeff Hale:

All's I can remember from the sixties Al, is a suggestion. Seems as kids we knew the cats, and marked some as from Mexico. However if me memory serves me, there was not much difference between them and Taiwan, or what we might have called in general Japanese. As I recall any cat with a green tinted clear glass was just plain cheep stuff. And maybe in the group of these there were Mexicans but the colors were just like other imports. I think we knew only because there was bags marked 'made in Mexico' It seems Vacor began their White 'Pirate's in the seventies Black pirates in the eighties, then the spotties, and the rest is history. That is, the swirls began showing up in the 90's. They used to have some story on their web site, indicating they originally made clays, as far back as the 30's or so, but did not say when Glassy's began. If I am right or recall correctly those Mexician cats were so cheep, you'd never get into a game with them. It was before K-Mart (super cheep stuff)Back then, and they'd be in the super cheep realy junk toy section at your local grocier.

Oh yeah, so were Vitro cats and all-reds, black-lines etc in the Grocier's isle. But the Mexician's were the absolute cheapest, in price, quality and apearence, you could hardly give em away. The actual bags if there are any could be rare now, LOL. although I doubt there are too many people looking for em. This was in So. Calif. where Mexician anything was cheap and plentiful. Probably some remaining in So Cal. if you's was to look, I'd start there. For a bag that is, cause otherwise I do not think you'll ever be able to tell the difference between them and other orential imports.

Yeah I see Vacor brought their page back online, was just a single page for some time and was much different before that.  However maybe's we's is reading different pages?? It says they expanded their market in 1964, and their commercial operations. I might be able to relate to that cause, I'd say it would have been around 1964 when I saw Mexican cats. But it does not say they had 60 different marbles at this time. Although one might read this into it, by the way it's written. says "Vacor's success has continued" although written within what appears to be a time line it is not specific and is more implied with today’s production in mind, especially the “60 different types”. Unless they mean 60 different types of errors, LOL.  And they are saying they were making cheap cats before anybody else in 1944?? LOL. I know they didn't say 'cheap cats' but cats before Peltier, and the rest? Don’t sound likely. As I recall the early 1960’s is when cheap cats hit the market from outside the US. Before that there was Banana’s, Vitro’s, Marble Kings, maybe some champions and the like.  Don't think the 'time line' is written distinctively and dates might be wrong too. Maybe they made cats in 1954 or more than likely 1964, but 1944? Just don’t seem likely.  One of these days Al, cause I know you’re a bag hunter of all natures, I figure you’ll run across some, LOL.

Posted by Cathy Runyan-Svacina (8/21/03) on Pete’s Board

I have been a guest of Roberto...President of Vacor and he has taken me to a seldom seen private office with samples of their 30's marbles. They were exquisite and similar to Akro sparklers and corkscrews and yet different enough to see a specific difference. They are hard to come by as are the original boxes that I personally saw. Hope this helps....Cathy

 Posted by Jeff H.

 I knew whenever I was saying the above, there was somebody who told me they saw old glassy's by Vacor out there. Now I remember what you said Cathy, LOL. Where is it ,that you live? In the Show-me sate?? LOL Hint, hint. Come on Cathy show us, please, please, p-l-e-a-s-e.

Below, in this group are two which I figure are the oldest Vacor's I've run across. They were found within a group of 60's-early 70's marbles. The two big, red, white and blue ones. Are these anything like what you saw?? While I am not showing it cause I put these two in the photo so other's who find swirls like the lower of the two have had a difficult time identifying them, sometimes thinking they are an obscure Akro cork, the lower one swirls around quite a bit.

 I then asked Jeff is all in picture were Vacors.

 His response:

 Not probably Al, absolutly. Two of Multi-colored swirls lined up, are what you'll find in recent 5 years or so, except these have an attitue, like a CA. The black, red and Yellow I picked up around 1993, from a group of a ka-zillion, LOL. The others to the left except the 'bird-cage', I've had for maybe six years, from one group. Not certin of the date when made, except the clear with orange, is probably vintage 93 as well.

 

[Al Oregon]

Also, Glasfirma, now a part of Vacor (or vice versa) started making marbles over 70 years ago (their website blurb) so maybe when they were separate from Vacor, they made their own marbles and packaging?

[lstmmrbls]

There have been multiple glass marble manufacturers in Mexico and numerous others in South American countries

[wvrons]

Maybe the marbles in the box at the start of this post were produced by one of the other companies in Mexico or South America ?  Whatever their names were and time frames they were in business.  Good to know that there were good numbers of glass marble manufactures there. Maybe we will learn more about these unknown marbles which many label as foreign because we don't know who when or where they were made.

[jeeperman]

This is turning out to be an informative and interesting thread, thank you everyone. 

[cheese]

The topic is one that I'm very interested in as well, I'm looking forward to any more information that comes about.