Leaderboard

A few Alleys found through the years

@Fire1981 mentioned this to me a while back. I have now assembled what I have...21 in all colours and sizes. These are definitely one of my favorites

Recent Alley Addition. 1”!!!

My 10 sec of fame 🤹‍♂️🎉 Nice video among the "Stars" serving Vintage Machinemade Marbles Ow Yeah 😃😃😃 Thanks @stephenb

I finally won my first and only lot thus far with Blocks auctions last night and I am glad to add any Marble Kings to my stash. I see a good number of Bumble Bees and Cub Scouts in here which always widen my eyes. Looks like there might be some Cubs that are Kato type. Someday I will get a few of the harder to find Blended ones and the likes of Spidermans, Green Hornets, Dragonflys, Watermelons, and Hercules. For now, all the kids at recess will be so jealous of me, trying to win my Marble King Rainbows. Image is from Mr. Blocks auction 01/25/2026.

Mine has more white

I agree Here is a reproduction by Kelly Schmidt, He makes them very well

X3, Vacor

Scored a .75" black base opaque lutz for $20

It's almost Akro Friday 🤩 A UV Spiral 15/16" ** EDIT - Well, that's it, I've done lost my mind. I posted this exact marble only 20 days ago

Some (mostly) Rainbos

Some Yellows from peltier 😎

x2, Not polished. That's original surface IMO.

Some MKs for this Monday

X2, MFC, I don't think it's polished, all the dimples have smooth edges, just someone took good care of it and it never got played. Surface looks natural to me, you can even see a few wrinkles.

My favorite, some call him a 'clown'

5/8” CAC striped opaque

Akros for the win

Caged solid core, what's the size ?? I see one bubble pop and 2 fleas, otherwise a pretty clean marble. Unfinished pontils and on both ends helps me date it to between 1870 or so and 1910. The size is probably around 11/16ths, just guessing though, most of these were made by the Germans for the English gameboard market, the brighter colors also help date it. Dollars to doughnuts it was part of a gameboard set at one time.

Looks Vacor to me

perils of the hobby

Japanese

A cool blue & green corckscrew 5/8”

but because I found these guys, my marbles are now coming together, they have made it easier to id myself and they put up with my lousy, fuzzy pictures, and I truly have appreciation for these marble collectors for doing what they are doing, it is a great bunch of people with great knowledge I'm glad I came here for help!

Way too much. Those were going for 35 each not long ago. I've seen them hit 80+ lately and I wouldn't pay that but 225 seems way too high. Prices are nuts these days though.

This is an Alley Opal Lady. A sought after marble by collectors.

Alley bacon

Flicker has a good memory. There were Hurricanes that were packaged for Europe with the name Africa on the header. Here are two pics of the Don Juan bag (Netherlands) and a very rare Mega bag with the Africa name that "slipped through" the Guadalajara "checkpoint" that Pete was able to get prior to the 2003 time frame when I bought it from him.

G'day folks! Here is a nice example of a Akro agate corkscrew lifesaver, it measures 20mm. Cheers

Had this, just in case...

He finally got me

Your RAR reminded me of a great time years ago. We had a group, Ron Shepherd (RIP), Bill McCaleb(RIP), Nola Morgan, Dave Becker and I called "RARS". It stood for "Rare Alley Recovery Squad. It was so much fun competing at shows to see who could find the rarest Alley. The rule we followed was, If you set it down and your fingers are not touching the marble it was up for grabs. So many times, one of us would look at a marble but were not quite sure and put it back. Ron eagle eye Shepherd would have it in his hand, and it was sold. It was so much fun when we all were in a room at the same time, like chickens picking feed. Sure do miss them days and those guys. Anyhow, many of those marbles came from back in that time period.

Looks like the consensus says CAC swirl, that's my take anywho...never heard of a CAC Cubscout...

....Snakeskin alley

@Melissa has agreed to become a Moderator here @TheMarbleConnection. She is a stand up, well informed collector that will give you her best--always. Please give her the same respect that you give to Step, Chad and I. I absolutely welcome Melissa, and her ID knowledge, along with her wit and wisdom. This is a great thing! Marble--On!!

Good diagnosis Alta. I totally agree.

Thank you for the share Chad! @Chad G. Excellent work by you @Mojo Hey @The Nickel Guy if possible try and make the Jersey show, it’s always good to see Williamsport in the house !

Akron roller for the clay with blue ribbons.

Got these guys out for some sunshine today. 15/16" +/-

I took an overnight trip to Osaka earlier this week on 19-20. It started with a phone call from Ryotaro Matsuno, the owner of Matsuno Industry (the only marble maker in the country), inviting me to join a special meeting: he was going to meet a descendant of Tamakichi Tokunaga for the first time. Tamakichi is the man who made Japan's first marble-stopper bottles in 1892, after 5 years of studying an original British Codd bottle. After his death at 34, his family continued the business and the company eventually became one of the major glassworks, introducing advanced bottle making techniques from the US and Germany. Below are photographs of Tokunaga factories from a book "The Tokunaga Brothers: Four Key Figures in Japan’s Glass Industry/硝子工業界の重鎮　徳永氏四兄弟の巻”. The main factory in Yoriki-cho, Osaka (near the city center) East factory and Asahi-bashi Factory (both in Osaka) Amagasaki factory and Moji factory (both outside Osaka) Because every Codd bottle needs a glass marble, Tamakichi's success also meant the starting point of marble manufacture in Osaka. I had been collecting fragmentary references to Tokunaga and marbles for years, so I felt a honor to meet a member from the family. The man holding the bottle is Takashi Tokunaga (from the bloodline of Tamakichi’s third son). The bottle is a rare Tokunaga ramune bottle stamped “1922,” kindly lent by my collector friend Yoshinori Kakizaki. Takashi was so happy to see it, as no such old bottles have been passed down in his family. Takashi also mentioned that his father keeps a company history book that is carefully preserved. He offered to try persuading his father to let me read it. If I learn anything related to marble history, I hope to share an update in this thread. We ended up talking happily until the izakaya's (Japanese-style pub) closing time, and before we parted we exchanged contact information. During my marble research these years I come to realize people who are willing to meet and talk are not many. I’m grateful to the openness of Takashi and Ryotaro who kindly let me join the gathering.

Nothing exceptional, but this AV-loaded marble identified as MK, I found it in a group of marbles from the latest Heaton dig while I was cleaning them. Here is Ron Shepherd's comment during the identification... "I agree. We know that possibly Heaton and for sure that Jack Bogard bought and sold marbles, and cullet with Marble King. I also know for sure that Jack Bogard bought marbles and equipment from Ravenswood. That was according to a talk with Jack by myself. The same day he showed me a set of Ravenswood machine rolls he bought at Ravenswood." Below, I also show a small video to better highlight the aventurine 1.mp4

Flower frog 🐸

It's always nice to watch these videos. Thank you!

Last one I bought was $20.oo, it was a while back but 225 is ridiculous, that's almost a friggin car payment. They're a little HTF but not that hard.

Africa or Hurricane? No difference in the marbles unless you have a headed bag. Different distributors around the world sometimes assigned different names to the same marble. American collectors use the Mega names but try to tell that to a Mexican collector who probably has the greater right. Then there's the European and Australian markets. Vacor itself didn't give a rat's a**e as the collector market concerned them not in the least (until they commissioned the Atmosphere).

This looks like a Vacor Hurricane IMHO🔥 RAR

Beautiful. Sadly I have not read most of my books. One of my projects is to try to distill the thousands down into a mere five bookshelves of favorites. The attic is full of boxes. Every now and then I pull a box out, choose a couple of books to save, and take the rest to a secondhand store. I adore old textbooks. And old do-it-yourself books. And cookbooks. And mid-1900's fiction with colorful covers. Mostly I like the looks of them. But I have a few classics that I actually like to read and re-read.

"Superboy" 0,70