7 replies to this topic

[Steph]

Peerlesses are mostly known for their unusual patch shapes. But I think some can be more normal looking. How can one be sure though? How does one get a positive peerless i.d. for a neatly shaped patch? Well, it was the peerlesses which were used for the picture marbles, and for few others like the Cotes Master Loaf advertising marble at the beginning of this post. So I thought it could be fun and useful to collect a photo bank of picture marbles to show a range of possibilities.

Feel free to add other peerless pix or info, picture marbles or otherwise. The ones I post are most likely from auctions. There may be some exceptions. Some identifiers can be found in the pic names. Some pix may be clickable for larger images.

[Steph]

Well, I've just discovered that there is a limit on number of images for a single post.

[Steph]

Fwiw, those PPPs above are starting to look like "tweeners" to me. The transparent patches don't seem very NLR-like. And straighter cut lines are starting to seem "newer". Here's a close up of another example of what seems like a non-stereotypical PPP from a Marblealan auction.




For more PPP examples, and for comparison to the comics above, these PPPs with the cubscout and spidey colors look particularly NLR to me. (box posted by lizzy, it belonged to someone getting her help with appraisal). Some of the comic PPPs are close to these but the range of patch shapes here seem maybe wilder and more "traditionally" misshapen than most of the comic PPP shapes above.

(click to enlarge)



Here's a box Charles posted. (click to enlarge)




I saw something yesterday in a patent where Sellers Peltier (I think it was) MIGHT have been talking about globby patches as a bad thing. Maybe he didn't like the earlier wilder PPP patch shapes. I need to read that patent closely. I wonder if he thought Akro's patches were superior to Peltier's. Pure and shallow conjecture right now. I have to psych myself up to read the patents. (some pelt patents are linked here)







Here, by the way, is a bag with rainbo era patches in it. I have ads which might place this bag in the late 30's. I'm presently working on organizing those to see how well the date might be pinned down.

(click to enlarge)





And here are some more comic PPP's.

This box was listed for sale last year. I have another pic with some of the mibs rotated. I'll try to find that and add it here.

(click to enlarge)










My best guess right now for the "jewelry box" style of "picture marbles" packaging is 1934 or later, based solely on their part in the "bread for vitality" compaign. And maybe ready to go at the end of 1933, so they could be included in the 1934 campaign if that is the year they were released.

A box like this one from fauxgoddess217 is shown in a circular on p. 139 of AMMM. The one in the flyer has a Cotes Master Loaf marble in it. That ad is where I first saw reference to the "eat bread for vitality" campaign. And 1934 is when that campaign seems to have hit the nation. (another thing to doublecheck) In 1934 there was a "Bread for Vitality" radio program even, and lots of celebrities were involved. Betty Crocker was doing a huge promotion, but looks like small bakeries had "Bread for Vitality" or "Bread Energy for Vitality" ads too. The campaign continued beyond 1934. But last night I left off my search about halfway through 1934. Lost energy. Maybe I need more bread.





My best guess for the most NLR-looking version of peerless patches would be 1933 or earlier. My guess for the most classic-looking NLRs has been 1932 or earlier for a while now. Antoher fuzzy date. Something else I need to pin down my reasoning for.


One last note for now: AMMM says there was a Herbert Hoover for president PPP, so I guess that would have been a 1932 version of marbles done by Angerstein's picture transfer process.



Update: Mike just gave a definitive date. Definitely late 1933 on the picture marbles. Way Cool!

[Steph]

I have a few more pix to pull in. Things like a double compartment bag Alan sold this past year. It has a mixture of mibs in it, including some PPP's. (pretty sure)

Maybe the "Sunset" box, coz of it's "tweener" look. Did it have peerless patches? gotta check.

Maybe some ads. I have a cool 1939 illustration of a Morton Salt mesh bag. It mentions a variety of "glassies" including some "mottled". :-)





But my eyes are crossing. I need a breather. :-)







'kay, here's that 1939 ad. now back to my breather

(click)

[marblemover]

one thing i've noted (or thought i thought) is that the picture marbles are a bit bigger than 5/8" which might add to why their patches are more or less rectangular compared to other Peerless Patches.

and about the patent mentioning globby patches, it says:
"In devices and methods when the gob, or suspended or mold charge is severed or cut-off at the flow or delivery port or opening of a melting tank, the striating material usually does not extend in the form of a line or narrow streak throughout the mass of the translucent vitreous or glass body, but is usually in the form of a more or less irregular spot or blotch at one side of the body of the finished object. If the outflowing molten mass can be drawn out or attenuated sufficiently, and then re-fused, before the suspended or mold charge is cut off, then the striating material may become distributed in the mass of the suspended or mold charge, so as to appear as a group of lines or streaks therein."
(since this patent (1927650), which was filed in July of 1928, is talking about a translucent body glass, i don't think this technique was used for the patches, but instead for the slag or onyx types with a feathery appearance, in particular and at least initially.)

[Steph]

I'm totally not psyched up for reading patents. I made it through one page of #1927650 and then left my body. I heard someone screaming and then I found myself in a corner on the far side of the house.



uh ... well not that bad but ....


I think I need a chart to have a hope of keeping track of the dates. Translucent makes me think of acme realers, which also have feathering. But I am aware that translucent sometimes meant different things to people in the first half of the 1900's than it does to us. You could be correct about it referring to slag glass.

I'm with you about 1928 seeming earlier than is typically associated with patches. It seems a little late for slags though. I"d have thought that it was even late for gobfed slags but I don't know.

Is it your position that 1928 would be about when Peltier moved from hand-gathered slags to gob fed ones? Or something more subtle and/or more technical than that.


There is one more thing I'm keeping in mind, namely that some patents have been awarded for machines which never were used.

[marblemover]

yeah, i am wondering which machines were not put to use (or rather, just didn't work very well, so they weren't used for long, at least).

that 1927650 patent might seem late for slags, but SOMETHING was different about those feathery Pelt slags--and this patent sure sounds like it fits them.

translucent might probably have been the word to mean "other than opaque" since transparent might have meant "clear" or "colorless". not sure i can really say many slag-type (onyx) marbles are truly transparent, at that. weren't slags single-stream marbles? with the glass colors mixed in the same tank--sometimes muddying up the design? it seems that is one of the results Peltier was trying to avoid with this invention.

ya really gotta read these patents if you're going to understand what it is the pictures are all about. sometimes that can be very arduous, yup.

here's a rich one to plod through--> 1828216.

[Steph]

And now for something completely different! I looked up some 1930-ish pieces about the comics, and the comics themselves.

Here's a 1933 article I wanted to link somewhere. Here is good enough: How Comic Cartoons Make Fortunes

I like this 1931 YouTube clip even more though: Classic Chicago Tribute Cartoonists




p.s. Didja know that Herbie was Smitty's brother?

And Kayo was Moon Mullins' brother? And Emma was Moon's landlady.

Ko Ko, Bimbo and Betty all have the same creator, Max Fleischer. Bimbo might've introduced Betty. Betty introduced Popeye, well, the film version of Popeye , , , but Popeye would take me off topic. LOL. Wouldn't want to do that.