bumblebee

I like to credit young blood in the hobby for giving Vitro the love it deserves as well as Peltier Rainbos. I spent 60% of my money at the last marble show on Vitro. Even Masters are coming out of the closet. I find so many pretty Akro patches overlooked due to cork and Popeye fever. I always want more melonballs and white slags.

The bigger pale greenish German handmade in the left jar below the purple slag?

Interesting ... a handsome family ... what is that size range?

Monster on left is 15/16", originally owned by Bo Stiff I believe. I did get a 1" after this photo was taken.

I really like Masters but I have to fault them for being too "brownish" in general, but once you escape the brown they can become amazingly brilliant, particularly the meteors (or is it comets, or both?).

Here's a Masters family photo.

Those are so pretty my eyes hurt.

I verified with them that those "precision" ones like the corkers are about $4 each, which seems crazy at 5/8". Must be a lot of labor in grinding them down.

Your reply gave me my first real lead, so thank you! Here are close-ups of all the animals. http://imgur.com/a/JfTMp

Amazing detail for their size, and I really cannot believe they survived all these years given the fact that they were among a lot of board games that were heavily played with!

I did some more research and these seem very much like "dresden paper ornaments", especially given the fact they have the thread loops on their backs.

Thank you, Winnie! That's the first real information I have on them. I still cannot find a mark anywhere beyond "Printed in Germany" and "No 1666" on the instructions.

These figures are very fragile. It's a wonder they survived so long as toys. I am not sure whether mine match the catalog link you sent me. The boar looks very familiar.

This came from an estate with several 1930s era board games. It is made in Germany and appears to have never been built. It consists of cardboard and wood and then these animals figures which may look like plastic, but are very light and delicate and appear to be made of two halves of paper pulp pressed and painted. Each animal has a little thread loop on its back as if for hanging. (One of the animals, the fat elephant, is made in Japan and of different material--probably thrown in there later).

Any ideas on who made it and when? I tried Googling the animal figures and could not come up with similar figures.

Since some people claim to be in contact with the original finders, why not ask them to issue an anonymous statement of facts surrounding the find? They can keep their anonymity and the collecting community can benefit from a very vital piece of marble history.

I'm guessing 60s. They said the family was very "crafty" and played a lot of games. There was also a huge wooden doll house, fully furnished, that looked to be from that era.

Neat...I rarely find MK marbles in the wild but I don't know why. This was at an estate sale where the owner collected hundreds of cuckoo clocks, piano rolls, and 78rpm records. I asked whether they had marbles and they produced a coffee can with just these and a few game dice. $7 was worth it. Just wish he hoarded marbles instead of cuckoo clocks!

Found these at an estate sale today and was charmed by the clay handmade marbles (not antique but still charming). Somebody clearly tried to make them swirls.

Can anyone tell me what era/type these MK are? I have another 100 or so of the same style. I was thinking 60s or 70s?

One vote for John McCormick's marbles being superior to the "exotics" pictured thus far.

Does anyone else have one of these? It is a faceted double bullseye agate. Looks like an owl. This one was dug from a late 19th-century privy. I lovingly refer to it as the "pooper shooter."

For those who believe they are genuine, what are your theories about the colors and the low quantities? Would CAC have mixed up tiny batches of glass and run them through their equipment for just a few dozen marbles that they never sold or even gave away to local children? Wasn't it a lot of work to clean up and start new batches with new colors?

Maybe these were prototype marbles near the end of the company's life? They are so beautiful it would seem some employees would have secreted away a few hundred if they were all being dumped, right? People had good visual taste back then too.

What are some other speculations?

They are few and far between.

I had one about 20 tears ago. A collector offered me $200. I thought he had more $$ than sense, a fool-and-his-money, etc.etc and sold it. Never seen another since, and I've been looking.

Yikes, hearing that from you has me worried. I may need to content myself with my 5/8" one that is mostly white with very light green but is faceted.

I'm still looking for a high-contrast vintage green bullseye shooter. I lose sleep at night knowing my agate collection is incomplete.

Nobody has explained why a find of this historic magnitude is entirely undocumented. That is highly suspicious, particular if big-time collectors were involved. Where are the photos of the dig? Where are the photos of the piles of the marbles, the cleaning and sorting? This is a hobby where members savor history, particularly documented history. There is no shortage of photos of every bit of packaging and paper and marble history, except in this case.

Clearly somebody has something to hide, but it is not clear what that something is.

My gut tells me that if these are genuine vintage CACs, then somebody got them for a song from somebody who did not know their value, and that explains the hush-hush nature of their origins.

Thanks, I did good for $3.

Grandkids

But where did the grandkids get the Champion Hot Wheels marble? Were they sold in stores? I thought they were some sort of abandoned run that never made it to stores?

Where would the farmer whose estate this came from have gotten a Champion Hot Wheels marble? I know, it's a trick question, because it assumes the mason jar I got this from was untouched, but the fact this was the only pre-1950s marbles out of 236 marbles seems odd.

Thanks, I thought so. Does it have an official name?

I bought this 5/8"ish being sold as a Master but my gut says Marble King, but can someone confirm?