From what I can make out looks like a bunch of earlier handmades with faceted pontil. What makes you think polished? A lot of the marbles from Solitaire boards stayed in pretty good shape because they lived on a board (or in the box) rather than on a playground in a kids marble bag
Not a corkscrew and I agree transitional hand gathered. I'll echo the cut off/pontil looks very clean compared to most Japanese. The glass quality, pattern, and even the color are nicer than what you'd normally associate with Japanese. Nice example.
The agate could have been part of a watch fob, letter opener etc. Probably not intended to be a marble with the hole drilled, but whatever. Still round.
Not entirely sure what we're looking at here, but the marbles in the first pic look pretty clean. Also assuming they were painted after firing. I suppose anyone at any time could make/paint clay marbles in small quantities. And that red white and blue would be pretty popular color choices.
About a dozen or so have potential if the condition is there (the other white based ones with a single color are fairly common). A couple imposters might have also sneaked into the group.
If I'm understanding things correctly you went out of your way to correct the sellers mistake (for which you got refunded), but the guy who ended up with your marbles won't give it up? Even though he got it by mistake to begin with?
So much seems odd. Looks like a pretty common amber slag to begin with.
I hoped that whoever owned that collection would chime in.
Still, you don't see them that often. I almost took a chance.. an online auction pic where it looked like one was hiding (local auction out of Canada no less). Kinda kicking myself now.