Steph

It's pretty.

I'd say really good chance of being foreign. Not Vacor though, in my opinion. Not a style I'm familiar with anyway. Possibly Asian? I so very much look forward to learning more about what kinds of marbles are available in South Africa. You can't know how exciting that is for me. Whether it tells us about how other known manufacturers imported into your country, or possibly reveals the existence of manufacturers we did not know about yet ...

Pelts seem the most likely to go wonky among the vintage marble set.

Tiny little seams don't say Akro, yet Akro was still my first thought. With the tiny little seams, I guess it could be Master. I suppose the glass would fit with Master also. But with the condition of it, maybe it was a dug marble ... which puts me back to Akro.

Hi Alta. Welcome. I'm not sure just from that angle. The pattern on the one with yellow doesn't really look Vacor to me. More views could help. Also .... what size is it? One inch wide?

I'll guess fold. Looks like more than one error went into the making of that one. Have you see definite swirls with that color combo?

Much better on the exposure. Now it is looking vintage. More angles with that exposure might help someone see a different maker. For me, I just go with the rule of thumb that if there are no readily identifiable structural distinguishing features, then it is probably an Akro. Brad, are you around? Does lime-ish green say anything in particular about a maker. @slagmarble

I'm getting a modern feel from it. Some of the base glass looks clear. I do see transparent green areas also. So that's a strange mix. The white has a foreign look.

Some people go to marble shows. I spent a lot of time looking at marbles online at forums such as this. I do have books, but with a book and without a trained eye, it's not easy to figure out what you have.

Mostly it's experience. Patterns, colors, textures, sizes. For example, if a marble has small v-shaped cutlines, it might be a Master from the 1930's ... if the colors are right ... or it could be a modern marble from Asia. Super large marbles are mostly likely to be modern.

Basic Rainbo. Well, actually Pelt might have sold it as a Bloodie. I see the area which seems pink to you, but the overall impression I get is white. And I presume that's what it was meant to be. I have nothing intelligent to add about the color variations.

Orange is close to red ... and red was the most popular marble color. Also, there weren't many colors in the official Ace runs. (For whichever of yours might possibly have come from an Ace run, assuming any did.) There MIGHT have been more colors than the five here, but it might just have been variations in shade. The other styles such as Prize Names and Tri Color Agates expanded to more colors, but I'm not sure the Aces were around long enough to expand. Good call on going with "cork".

Hi. Welcome. These appear to be mostly modern, from the 90's and early 2000's. The white with black speckles might be a Vacor Dalmatian. If that's what it is, it's a discontinued style, so you might find some interest in it. I can't guess the value though. I may not ever have seen one for sale. https://www.billes-en-tete.com/detail.php?id=112 The black and yellow one appears to be a modern Marble King. The very large one would be a Vacor Serpent. The size alone might make that worth a few dollars. https://www.billes-en-tete.com/detail.php?id=51 The ones with blue and yellow would likely be Vacor. I have seen them in packages with an assortment of styles, but I've never seen a name for the style. The Coca Cola marble is probably not officially associated with the Coca Cola company. Some people paid companies fees to get permission to make marbles with their trademarked images. But many logo makers didn't legally get the rights to print the logo. I don't know how we would tell on that. It's a fun marble that a logo marble collector might like, but I don't know what the value would be. I don't think there is a lot of monetary value in the group but if you listed them on ebay in small groups, you might get some bidding action.

I bet someone somewhere calls it a snake. I mostly see the term for marbles with surface ribbons like that but transparent base. Here's a thread Galen posted about snakes. http://marbleconnection.com/topic/22400-what-is-a-snake/

That's a pretty stunning photograph. If there's some wordplay to it, it went over my head.

I wrote to Stéphane but he was not able to log on. He said I could share his facebook address, in case you would like to make contact with him. So, here that is. https://www.facebook.com/stephane.balasa But don't be a stranger! I would still like to see your marbles when you find them, and I am always curious about marble history in Europe that we might not yet know here.

Oooooh ... very pretty Pelt.

Welcome! I look forward to learning about marbles available in your area. Stéphane shared some of his with us once, and I see them on facebook, but I would still love to see yours. @StéphaneFrance

It's definitely possible it was part of an Ace run. But let's just say Akro cork. We can be sure of that. I don't think the true Aces lasted long as part of Akro's offerings. I suspect part of the reason was that they seem to have had trouble getting the base glass to be consistent. Sometimes so thin that there wasn't much fire-y glass. Sometimes so dense, that light could hardly get through to light up any fire.

I understand your Alley impulse. With the lack of a clearly defined ribbon and the large size, I vote Jabo.

Exciting!

Another of my bored google searches for marbles turned up this bit of news from April. Meanwhile in ... Gambia, voters will vote using glass marbles for the last time "Gambia, voters will head to the polls this spring to elect local officials as expected, but it will be the last time they will vote using glass marbles. For the past 60 years, each Gambian has cast a vote by dropping a glass marble into a barrel painted in party colors. (Election officials listen to make sure each voter drops only one marble into the barrel.) When the barrels are full, the marbles are counted by pouring them into wooden trays with 200 or 500 holes. The system works well, discourages fraud, and allows illiterate voters to participate, Gambian officials have said in the past. But they will now be switching to paper ballots to meet international standards."

Not a Christensen Agate turkey head marbles. From here I'm thinking Akro cork. (What does it look like backlit? Does it have fire inside which looks like it's coming from the white ... not just from the orange ribbon? It looks like it might. In which case I think Akro called it an Ace.)

Oy. The long seams and your ability to make those ribbons mostly horizontal, make me think not Master. But the seams have a bit of a scoop, which makes me not so sure about my first guess of Vitro. So, that's my answer: a tentative Vitro guess. Hopefully someone else will add their thoughts.