Ric

Congratulations, that's a great group!

I think it's a sloppy Akro Auger - maybe "lazy" is a better word . . .

Thanks for the reference, Steph. I imagine many children would enjoy the story and, as far as I can tell, the illustration looks very good too.

I think I know which transitionals you're talking about (pinched "pontil"?) and I think that many of them have now been attributed to Japan.

The best Parakeets would have 3 colors with very little or no white showing. If the white on yours was covered with a fourth color it would be a Parrot.

Here's a really old pic of mine - I should probably take a new one. When I put them in Chuck Brandstetter's hands he was convinced they were not Vitro and was on board with the consensus MK ID. I am still not entirely convinced but where else are you going to put them? The only other possibility I can imagine is that they are a foreign type I have never seen before. No fractures on these.

I have a group of those and showed them around to a variety of very knowledgeable collectors at a few different shows - the consensus was, MK Bumble Bee patch. I know . . . pretty crazy, right? I'll look around and see if I can find a pic of mine and I'll post them here when I do.

Is that a Type I Tiger Eye - veneered on clear? Or a Parakeet on opaque white? What a great marble!

@VaMarbles That is a really nice little group of Vitros!

Richard Gartley and Jeff Carskadden are both academics and their books are written in that style. They have also published quite a few articles in academic journals - mostly about history in Ohio. Together, they authored two of my absolute favorite marble books: Chinas: Hand Painted Marbles of the Late 19th Century (1990) Colonial Period and Early 19th Century Children's Toy Marbles: History and Identification for the Archaeologist and Collector (1998). Each has a great reference section, and I have also enjoyed reading many of the resources they cite. I highly recommend both books, although some folks might find the academic style off-putting.

That's how it happens. The majority of Peltiers you see will have two seams with 2-3 ribbons running between them on each half of the marble (4-6 ribbons total).

It appears to be some sort of West Virginia Swirl, which is a sort of "catch-all" category for machine-made random swirls produced by a number of companies located in WV. This one might be a Heaton, or maybe an Alley.

My first inclination is that it is not Peltier but that might change with other views. When you post a marble for ID, try to show the ends of any ribbons or stripes you can see. On many marbles, the ends will be found at "seams", the look of which, can be very important for identification.

I've been at this for over 25 years and I still learn new things about marbles nearly every day. It's one of my favorite parts of the hobby. If you stick with it, things will eventually start falling in place. Now that you've seen what Vitro Conquerors look like - the top patches can be many different colors, but beyond that they are very similar, having white glass veneered over the rest of the transparent base glass, or sometimes appearing more like internal filaments - you can probably look at the rest of your marbles and find more of them. As I said earlier, they are one of the most common vintage marbles out there.

Remember, a "slag" has only white striping glass in a clear or colored transparent base. The blue patch on this one means it is not a slag.