Ric

Hey Chuck, I hope all is well - long time no see! Chad's got it - a 1980s Champion Red Cloud according to Charlie Stutsman.

Sundry Vitros . . .

The patent has nice illustrations and explanations of Alley’s shearing mechanism. It was filed on February 27, 1933 (Serial No. 658,752) and granted on March 5, 1935 (U.S. Pat. No. 1,993,235). 1935 Lawrence Glass Novelty Shearing Machine US Patent #1,993,235.pdf

@shiroaiko I do not recognize the trademark. I am guessing "Brilliant" was just a common description for clay-foil marbles and was not associated with a specific company or brand. Regardless, Hopf & Hopf included bulk and packaged "Tonmärbel brilliant" on their 1953 price list. Here are the marbles from the poly-net bags I posted earlier. The large ones are about 15/16".

Interesting, I think it's a German slag too - maybe a striped transparent gone awry?

@shiroaiko I wonder if some of the "Brilliant Marbles" (boxes of clay marbles) shown in Stephanie's post here are the ones described on Hopf's stock/price list? I think there are also some Hopf wire-pulls in her thread.

I think that's the gist of it. I have unlabelled poly-net bags (tubes) that are melted closed on one end and tied on the other that I once thought were Veiligglas and I'm now convinced they are Hopf's too. @Fire1981 posted some examples just like mine in another thread. @shiroaiko I have known one particular type of these marbles for quite a few years. It is the one with translucent gold/amber and white striping glass. On some of these, the striping glass has tiny bubbles associated with it, which makes it sparkle like gold. It's a very pretty effect. I have never known what they were until now but I found them intriguing enough to pick up a few at shows over the years - another mystery solved, thank you!

@teajayo You know what I like TJ, that is picture perfect - beautiful!

@shiroaiko This is very interesting - I appreciate your efforts! It is nice to learn more about these companies and their marbles. I was in serious need of an update on what is known about "foreign" machine-made marbles. I am very happy to be getting it from you!

In order of increasing rarity, I would say, blue, green, blue/green, red. The blue/greens are uncommon, but not too uncommon.

@shiroaiko This is very interesting to me and I really appreciate you assembling all of this information! Much of what you say makes very good sense to me, and there is no reason to think that Seike's marbles were not marketed as CODEG or Fairylite. But I wonder what other marbles they might have marketed. I would be surprised if they were only Seike's. And I wonder if any of these other marbles were also labeled "Foreign", with no specific country of origin listed. I wonder if CODEG ever marketed Veiligglas. Many questions remain for me. But I must say that I had three of the 10 count CODEG boxes at one time. I got them out of Ireland years ago, which makes me think even more that they may be Seike's. The marbles are very nice. I had thought they were Veiligglas and I was not aware of any discussion to the contrary. Now I need to catch up and reevaluate. Thank you for bringing all of this to my attention!

I just want to clarify something. I am not saying this marble isn't Vitro, I have not seen them all. In fact, I would say that if this marble is American it's likely a Vitro - I couldn't imagine who else would have made it. On the other hand, it would be a very unusual Vitro, IMO. I'm pretty sure I have a few that would fit nicely with these in my Vitro archive, maybe with different colors too, but I'm not certain. Unfortunately, I'm not close to my collection at the moment. The colors on certain marbles I have in my Vitro archives has always bothered me a bit - I have to work pretty hard to convince myself that they really are Vitro colors. Beyond that, the marbles look Vitro enough that they're in there. Lately, I have been looking at El Aguilas production and I notice that some of them share similar colors and combinations to some of the interesting ones in my archive, and I think I may have figured out a way to sort out the interlopers. But that idea is not ready for prime time yet. I have had many of these marbles for many years, probably long before I ever even heard of El Aguila, and certainly way before I had access to verified examples of their production. And at this point, I'd be kind of surprised if I didn't have 50 of them in there, and I plan to have fun trying to sort them out. 🙂

It's an odd one. I see Vitro, Pelt, and MK possibilities, which means . . . I got nothing, but at least I have it in that order.

My understanding is that Cowan de Groot and Grahams Bros. were general toy merchants who marketed many imported products, including marbles. Does your reference specifically indicate that marbles were being imported from Japan by these companies? Is there any documentation from Seike that indicates his marbles were being sold to these companies?

Thanks for sharing this, it's way cool! An automated shearing mechanism for hand-gathered marbles. I can just imagine Cerise Agates being made, and at the rate of 40/min no less. Very interesting.