Ric

Sometimes less is better - light mint green and purple - nice!

Here's a nice little score that I had totally forgotten about - one of the few benefits of getting older, kinda like two scores in one!

I will add, since Harry was born in 1918 we could safely date this bag from mid-1920s to mid-1930s - near a century now, older than one might expect. It's also interesting how enduring the American Indian motif is on vintage marble pouches and packaging. It likely persisted into the 1970s. This is all very interesting to me, for some reason. 🙂

@akroorka Here's a peek into the maw of Harry's bag so you can see the 2-layer leather construction . . . The inner layer is still in good shape too. 🙂

This one is nuts, Tommy - is that 16-18 outer bands? I'm having a hard time keeping track. 🙂

Here's a neat marble, a sloppy, choppy and drizzly version of a favorite Ravenswood - found it at the Pride of the Prairie show last weekend.

@akroorka Happy Thuringen Thursday, Art! The transparent color of that last one sure is pretty. Here is a recent acquisition - a 11/16" blue and white latticino with purple/lavender blends. "English colors", AFAIK. Excellent condition and color - I couldn't pass on it.

I think there is consensus that these marbles were made by Veiligglas in the Netherlands. I also think that this very packaging may be the basis for some historical anecdotes about "German wire-pulls" and German swirls". I do not really know what the thinking is about German machine-made marbles today, but I think that many, if not all, of the swirls once thought to be German are now attributed to the Dutch Veiligglas company. I believe these marbles were made in the Netherlands, packaged in Germany, and shipped to the USA from there.

As I recall, she used to show off some gorgeous Cat's Eyes on the Marble Mental site back in the day - dang, that was a long time ago!

That is the challenge, Aiko - I do not think any of the marbles I show are Vitro, or even American, necessarily. I showed them to very experienced Vitro collectors here and they agreed the marbles were not Vitro. When did Seike stop making marbles?

First, in my experience, purple is not one of the most common striping colors on vintage marbles. It's far more common as base glass (think slags), and seeing purple trend lighter and redder toward lavender and pink is even less common, in either case. So I think the purple-pink color range just wasn't that common, most likely because few girls were buying and playing marbles. Green was a more common color and there are plenty of marbles with green and purple-pink (think Vitro) - not so many swirls though. I'd be surprised if CAC didn't make one. Veiligglas and Ravenswood certainly did, and a few variations were produced at Lawrence Glass & Novelty (Alley) in Sistersville and Alley Agate in Pennsboro too. I think Cairo, Champion, Davis, Heaton, Jackson and Jabo all had variations, but no more than a few variations at any one company (excluding modern JABO, DAS and SMM). In my experience, green and purple-pink combinations were just far less common on vintage marbles, in general.

Thanks again for the help and added photos, Art. Harry's bag has the same leather liner as yours. Fortunately, the interior of this one is nice too, although perhaps a different type of hide, as you said. I'll try too get a pic at some point.

It's a good one, Tommy!

Here's an oldie but a goodie . . . maybe not the best background for this one. 🤔

Bummer, Jess, I'm not seeing them and I'm betting they're great.

I think the Ebay example might be (more?) opaque and purple but it's hard to see the base well on yours for comparison.

Thanks, Art - I thought you might have seen it. I am not so sure it's that common though, since I have not seen another, not as far as I recall anyway. Think of how many Master American Indian Chief bags you've seen by comparison. Do you think you have seen as many of these bags? Thanks for your thoughts, and I would love to see a photo of your bag for comparison.

Gail definitely had some dandies! Congratulations, Melissa - I'm glad you got them!

@davesnothere Do I see traits reminiscent of "mushroom marbles" on some of these?

@davesnothere And you thought nobody would miss you or your marbles. 🙂 Thanks to you, I may have solved a mystery. I have wondered about these marbles since I purchased all of them together at an estate auction in Northern Kentucky about 25 years ago. I showed them around quite a bit and the consensus was always "Not Vitro, probably crazy Marble Kings" but I was never too comfortable with that ID. This is probably the surest I've ever been about them, so thanks for that! Please tell me what you know about them. Are they fairly common up there? All these marbles were together in the same lot. I need to get them all back together again for a new photo shoot. 😄 Now if I can just find them!

@davesnothere I could easily see them being from the same manufacturer. I imagine if you kept the amount of color about the same and added more base to make bigger marbles mine would morph into yours. Now I'll have to find the other variants that came with them . . .

I look at the two big ones you posted and these, and I wonder . . .

I recently acquired this great marble bag, as supple as the day it was made. It belonged to a boy named Harry W. Lynch, Jr. (1918-2004) of Blackshire Road in Wilmington, Delaware. How do I know this? Because beyond etching his initials on the front of the bag, Harry embossed his whole name and address on the back. From the looks of it, I am guessing that he was a fastidious child. He also seems to have been a traveler or a dreamer, or both, since he was sure to include "USA" in his full "return-to" address on the back of the bag. As it turns out, Harry was from a notable Wilmington family and had a spirit of volunteerism. He also enjoyed collecting enough himself to leave a significant newspaper masthead collection behind at St. Bonaventure University. This is good stuff in my book. The American Indian graphic on this bag is not known to me, at least at the moment. So please let me know if you have any information about this particular style of bag. It almost looks as if Harry himself could have drawn it. Thanks!

@Al Oregon Great additions - thanks a lot, Al. That Kate Greenaway bucket wasn't on my radar - I think the Kitty Cucumber version would be similar. Here is one of the Tic-Tac-Toe games @Mojo posted a few years back. This one, or a very similar version, appeared in a 1974 Shackman catalogue.

I had to come back after remembering the similarity to this Seike example that @shiroaiko posted on March 22. I think there is a possibility that your marble is kin to this one. Seike did made "horseshoe-style cat's eyes" - not sure if that's the best thing to call them though.