Steph

Large size can add value.

Uranium to give the green glow. Manganese and selenium are elements which can be associated with orange glow when used to color glass. Vitrolite cullet is responsible for some of the green glow in West Virginia swirls. Most of those look like WV swirls. The red white and blue one needs more views in regular light -- I'm thinking maybe Peltier there. UV glass goes back at least to the 1800s and continues to this century.

Akro sounds good.

Three of those pictures seem to show roughly the same portion of the marble. I say good chance of Akro.

I'm not currently seeing a pelt structure. Not sure what it is though.

That could have been sold in a Bloodies box.

I see now ... the editor was suggesting the stores hold marble games.

What promotional opportunity were the stores missing?

My guesses would be between Vitro Cat's Eye and Peltier. I'll go with Cat's Eye.

Is the white swirling? Or is it mostly straight? This could be a Master.

Probably Asian. AKA Imperial.

Top three on left, Marble King Rainbows. Middle row, first on the left is a Marble King Rainbow Red. The next two in that row are Vitro Tiger Eyes. On the bottom row, on the left, the usual guess for that is Vitro All-Red. Some chance that it's a lookalike from another manufacturer, but gotta go with the odds and say Vitro. And then modern MK on the brown and whites.

I'm trying to track down why I remember there being a 3-vane Vacor. But whether there is a Mexican version or only the Asian, I'm not aware of anyone ever considering the 3-vane cats as anything but "common" no matter how tinted or clear the base glass is.

I have a very strong memory of those ones at the top as being ones I might have had fun with in the late 1960's or early 1970's. Nevertheless, my ID for them is "modern, Asian, common". Even though some might be vintage, they were still being made well into the modern period and probably are still being made, so that's the ID. No luck trying to ID them by company.

Asian. Supposedly common.

I think that might be a pontil ... possibly with a little bit of finishing done to it? And there is that bit in the first picture would could have been a drizzle but could be a tail. I don't have a guess on which era or country it could have come from, but I'm leaning to some kind of handmade/transitional.

I suspect the top is an Akro milky oxblood. I think the reflections and focus are making the red look almost transparent but it looks like my oxblood pictures used to look like on my old camera.

Can we get more focus on the 2nd view? Try it on a less-textured cloth surface to try to more the focus to the top of the marble. Failing that, focus where the camera wants to focus but then pull back an inch before you click it ... if your camera lets you do that.

Ira Freese did his mechanical tinkering at Akro in the 1920's. Akro corkscrews were introduced in 1930. The Popeye box was introduced around 1936. I think the original Popeye box had a different style marble in it, so I can't be sure when the Popeye as we know it was introduced but it would have been "after freese". A marble having eyelashes doesn't mean "pre-freese". It probably just means the glass shears needed sharpening. Vitros could have some white which you might consider stringy or filamented. But I think at least two of the so-called popeye patches on Alan's page are probably Akros. These two -- I would ID these as Akro if someone posted them without telling where they came from. Joe Street wanted to do a somewhat updated version of Alan's site. I was supposed to help with that. I dropped the ball. I am pretty sure Craig Snider's version of the site is as close to how Alan left it as Craig could make it.

I see that Marblealan.com mentions Vitro popeyes. However, those pages were saved from an old archive. The Marblealan site crashed some years before Alan passed away. Then it was retrieved from the Wayback Machine, I think. Old understandings (and misunderstandings) didn't get updated.

Based on texture I'm still wondering about foreign.

Hi Beth. In my book all "Popeye patches" are Akros. I think ten or more years ago there might have been confusion about it and it might have been thought that some of the marbles we call Popeye patches were Vitros. But as far as I know it is now been settled that Popeye patches are Akros. Here's one example. Popeye on left, Popeye patch on the right ... from the same Akro Popeye box. Some marbles which are called Popeye patches may not have come from the same kind of run as those two marbles came from. I think a lot of what are called Popeye patches came from digging at the Akro factory. I can probably find some more photos. Maybe someone else has some pix though. Are there any you have questions about?

I'm trying to find where I stashed pictures of my most classic bananas. I guess I may have to take new pix.

Yes. Foreign. I don't remember it as a Vacor style so I think Asian. Pretty.

Oy. The top photo looked Marble King to me. At least the one on the right did. The one on the left is very unruly, isn't it. I'm still leaning Marble King. But wait for a second opinion.