Ric

It's certainly possible the QC folks missed this marble but I assure you that Akro did not gain its reputation for selling marbles like this one. Any QC person who let too many of these slip by probably would have lost their job. And just to keep things in perspective, Akro closed about 15 years before this collector was born and people were likely digging there 10 years before he was in kindergarten. What do you think the odds are that a kid walked into a Five and Dime where a bushel of brand new Akro Spirals were selling five for a nickel and they pick the "Ghost Snake Killer"? You've had plenty of great marbles and I admire your efforts to market them but try to keep it real. I am probably not the only person who finds this sort of hyper hype off-putting.

My first thought is a Vitro but it would be nice to see what it looks like with strong backlighting.

This marble is short on striping glass. I doubt it would have cleared QC.

Akro IMO.

Conqueror variant IMO.

Pretty Akro Tricolor, I think.

The way they are sort of randomly placed on different marbles - I'd go with patches.

Might be a Cairo Cloudy Day - they're not all seedy.

Based on this single view, I'm thinking Ravenswood or Heaton, in that order.

I'd guess Alley.

Sorta looks like a messed up crease pontil transitional - maybe Japanese, but it's hard to tell.

Maybe an Akro Ace.

The pattern looks mostly Alley to me. I think your white balance is off quite a bit too, unless the striping is blue. I have the same problem on occasion but not exactly sure why.

It's not often meaningful. If you didn't wash them it could just be a surface stain from who knows what.

Finally, here is the 13/16" from the center of the group.

Here is the 13/16" marble from 12 o'clock in the group.

This one from 10 o'clock in the group is just shy of 3/16".

Here is the 13/16" marble from 8 o'clock in the group.

Here is the 13/16" marble from 6 o'clock in the group.

You're right, Fire - none of the "fish eyes" you'd expect on a Bennington. I have no idea if Tom Thornburgh made this one or not, it just seems like a reasonable possibility since much of his ceramic work was inspired by antique marbles. It also doesn't seem like it was intended to deceive, which would fit with Tom's attitude too. I think he was more about putting his own artistic spin on vintage designs. I am not sure if this one is inspired by Benningtons or old American stoneware types, I'm thinking the latter, but I thought it was pretty neat so I grabbed it when I had the chance, thinking it might be some of Tom's work.

I'm not Chad, but I'm pretty sure he would agree - it's probably newer than a lot of Imperials. The old style MKs are a patch and ribbon construction - the poles of the marble are different colors. The new style of MKs have two patches of the same color.

Based on my 25+ years of experience, it's a common 4-vane, single color, peewee Cat's Eye, which is likely to be a Marble King. That's the best I've got. I offer no guarantees. 🙂

As far as I know, these types of painted brown earthenware marbles were known to be made in Germany and America (and probably other places) ca. 1880s - 1930s.

It does look like a Marble King but it is not a cross-through. Cross-throughs have one color of opposing vanes appearing to cross through differently colored pairs of opposing vanes. The center one here is a 3-color St. Mary's cross-through (red is crossing-through) - you can also find them with only two colors. The other two marbles here are 4-color St. Mary's with no cross-throughs.

The first is a speckled clay, and it's pretty much impossible to determine the maker. The second is referred to as a Bennington - they are made in Germany.