Alox Manufacturing Co.
By
Were all fairly familiar with the TIT-TAT-TOE boxes (Photo #1). Well, they were
my first introduction to Alox. Some chap in the
PHOTO #1:
Wonder of wonders, it turns out that while one of the sets of five marbles were,
as expected, all the same, the other set of five were almost always different
and different sizes (5/8 to 13/16). What’s more, they had character. Not your
throw-away marble by a long shot. Some even exhibited flame-like movement and
there was one I only found a very few of which had spider-like webbing all over
it. Unfortunately, that was early on and I sold them to a fellow in
I particularly want to highlight these marbles from those boxes because they
were misidentified in the book Marble Mania as belonging to Alley Agate Company
(Photo #2). My suspicions are that the odd mix in those little boxes resulted
because Alox didn’t have enough matching sets of five to complement the others
in the box. However, they did have a wealth of these accidental beauties and
figured the buying public was smart enough to get on with the game with this
varied opposing set of five marbles. I suppose they said to themselves if you
couldn’t figure it out, you probably shouldn’t be playing Tic-Tat-Toe in the
first place! Occasionally, in the white opaque with green swirl marbles you can
detect aventurine. In Photo 2, Row 3, marble number four has aventurine.
PHOTO #2:
In those boxes you would also now and then find these 5/8 transparent Blue
marbles loaded with bubbles and having two surface cut-off lines with two
ghost-like bands connecting at the cut-offs. I’ve named the Blue Phantoms and a
rarer green one a Green Phantom (Photo #3). Never seen another marble like it
anywhere!
PHOTO #3:
Id like to show off four of my favorite Alox marbles. The two in Photo #4 (13/16
and ) and the two in Photo #5 (5/8 each) which I got on a trade.
PHOTO #4:
PHOTO #5:
Alox actually started up after WWI (1919) and although marble production had
ceased before the owners son, John Frier, Jr. (Jack), joined the company in
1950, there was a tremendous backlog of marbles on hand which the son marketed
for years. The bag in Photo #6 is an example of a mesh bag Jack tossed together
from this and that. Some had all translucent swirls while other bags had a
general mix. I consider the all translucent swirl bags to be the purest. They’re
19/32 each.
PHOTO #6:
Jack operated the company until 1989 when he retired and sold the property. Thus
went into history another venerable marble company. But one of the marble making
machines lives on and if you get the Mike Johnson, Dean Six, Susie Metzler
Schiffer Publication marble book set when they come out this year, you’ll have
the whole story of how Alox came to rest and its very special West Virginia
connection.