akronmarbles

Cool old Milton Bradley "Down and Out" marble game. Dates to around 1914 based off of Butler Brothers catalog listing.

"MIller Swirls" are fully automated IMHO. The glass constructions on these marbles clearly is from a 'stream" which shows continuity with other marbles within the same types. The race was to be the first to have a gravity fed stream with a shear fast enough to cut individual gobs at a fast rate. Faster the rate the more you produce - this is why machines eventually went duplex. The problem lays in glass conditioning - in the forehearth area where glass would make its fall into a machine- viscosity and temperature must be perfectly dialed in. This may seem very easy now, but this was the golden goose egg for the entire glass industry at the time. Most of the solutions for this problem resulted from a cross pollination derived from the container and pressed industry. There are 100's of patents on glass feeders and glass conditioning forehearths that had nothing to do with marbles. The money for R&D was in the greater glass manufacturing industry. The other interesting part is that Arnold Fiedler worked first for Akro, then for Peltier, and finally at CA. This is the rate that automation had to overcome in order to have an advantage over your competition: Akro was still hand gathering when Peltier came onto the scene.....

May 1927- hand gathering is still the name of the game. In my opinion - CA was the first to try and successfully utilize the fully automated process. I usually do not offer an opinion unless I have stacks of newspaper and trade journal articles to cite.

If you look....there are quite a few easy to find newspaper articles which will back this claim up.

The first marbles made by Peltier are hand gathered and machine rounded - just like MFC. Akro and CA are in the same boat.

I have always thought that 1865787 patent was only filed for as a security measure in case they lost the appeals case.

August 1953

US1946879

I think you are referencing the three Sellers Peltier patents.

William J Miller was an inventor and engineer. He had his own company - The William J Miller Machine Co in Swissvale, PA. He may have done work for Hartford Empire but most of the patents he is credited with are not assigned to Hartford - which would be the case if he was their 'machinist" as the book quote above says. He was a prodigious inventor in both glass and ceramic manufacturing processes. The first machine he created was built for Nividon Weiskopf - they were a commercial litho and glass manufacturing business in Cinn, Ohio. Prior to getting their machine from Miller - they were probably buying glass litho balls first from MFC and later from Akro Agate. I have documentation that Miller sold pneumatic shears to Akro Agate in 1915, and he undoubtedly got to crawl all over Akro machines in the testing and proving process. Almost every glass manufacturer in the US was using Miller products and devices. I imagine he was making a sale to Nivison when someone said something like this...."we could save a bunch of $ if we were making our own litho balls instead of buying them...we already have the hot glass in house and only need a machine" - Miller fulfills their request - the Nivison info only came out later in a lawsuit. The machines sold to Peltier were a different design and model type than the one used at Nivison. For more useless info on the machine(s) - see this page on my website: http://www.briangrahamglass.com/william-j-miller-glass-marble-making-machine/

Ron is spot on. I own one of the Miller machines - it only makes a sufficiently hot gob of glass spherical, nothing else.

Mike was a generous soul. I wouldn't have acquired and saved the old Peltier machine if it wasn't for him. Rest in peace my friend.

Here is the Nivison-Weiskopf machine - WJ Miller company catalog says machine is hand fed by a "gatherer". In the pic you can see the WJ Miller shear. Nivison_Weiskopf was a clear glass container manufacturer and a major lithography printer. My best guess is litho balls....

I agree with John - that looks like a Chris Robinson creation.

Steph nailed it. Could also be Akro Agate, Christensen Agate, or even Peltier. They all made hand gathered amber slags.

Yes - selenium was a later glass colorant addition.

One is a copper based red and the other is a selenium based red.

Looks more like a Master to me...😆

This catalog is interesting - year? I like how it still shows the Albright relationship via the Polished Clay marble additions in the listed assortment boxes.

I have a tangential thought....when did Peltier start dealing with Groper? I wonder if creating special 2 color and 3 color marbles to fill a defined marketing option offered by Groper, led to the creation of of the fancier Peltier styes such as the Golden Rebel, etc.

I have them all from 1903 up till 1934. Also have every Montgomery Wards ad from 1886 up till 1934.