Steph

No problem ... we count on you to warm up the audience ....

Thanks, Bob, for stalling for us!

No. Sorry. This is a new one. Well, modern. Maybe not new. They were seen at least back as far as the 80's. It's a Vacor Galaxy. I don't know how the colors were applied -- however, we count it as a machine-made.

Help! Ron recently threw quite the major kink into my understanding of this category. He pointed out a surprising type and everything I thought I knew about them shattered! LOL And now I need to rebuild it! So, what is the range of variation? Some looks so different from Marble King and some looks so similar. And some may actually have come from MK (right?) when they had orders to fill and ran out. I need to haul ought my copy of American Machine-Made Marbles to check that part.

I'd say it was mostly MK and one or both of Heaton and Bogard. (Heaton became Bogard.) Need a thread about range of variation of Heaton/Bogard cats because they had a wide range AND I'm pretty sure that some of their packages contain Marble Kings ... from times when they needed to fill orders and didn't have enough. MK was pretty consistent until recently. Lately they got some chubby vaned hybrid cats which could theoretically be thought of as Vitros.

I think I just gazed into that blue in the top right view for a full minute before I realized I was lost in it.

My marbles are mostly packed. I know we have some people with spiffy displays. Hope a lot of people play.

I don't know about submarines. The lavender makes me think we might be looking at a Jabo or DAS. When did you acquire it?

Hoody, here's one for you ... might be too American ... but maybe you'll get it .... http://marbleconnection.com/topic/21250-humor-ar-ar/

The structure does look Royal ... just not sure I ever saw those colors. Some Akro Royals. Are these colors close enough to feed a Royal fire?

Keeping it simple. A Royal Agates box pic I dug up while looking for a match for the colors on Richard's patches today.

They do, but I'm trying to find some back-up for that being an acceptable color combination.

Old newsletter. Volume 33 already way back in 1984? I can't read the print. But that's marble history. http://www.marblecollecting.com/marble-collectors-society-of-america/

If you're seeing a cork, then it could be what is known as a "broken cork". That's where you have a four-ribbon Peltier NLR where the four ribbons connect in such a way as to form a cork-like pattern.

That shade of blue makes me think of Christensen Agate. Don't know if that should be my first guess or my second. The other guess would be Alley.

I actually kinda wanted the gap not to be there. It wasn't a consideration in my Vitro vote. Mostly the plump ribbons.

I suspect it is a crack of some sort. Maybe an annealing fracture. (Connected with the cooling process of the marble.) If I saw the last photo first, I might have thought American made ... because of the slight wave in them. However, my first impression based on color and the first pictures was Japanese, or at least some other early Asian marble. And I'm sticking with that. The slight grayness of the base suggests early Asian. And the turquoise and general smoothness of the vanes are right for that.

These ribbons say Vitro to me.

It's American-made. By sheer numbers, the odds say Marble King for that style of ribbon. .... leaving open door for someone to say they recognize it as something else.

LOL ! No! It's educational! Unless you ask me again, and then I probably will ... but while I was sure it was modern, I did not know its source. "noted wildlife artist ken Michaelson" ... how cool is that? Modern marbles can still be collectible, and it's good to know.

Beauties. Supposedly Vitro cats were introduced in 1954. I can't remember if we have that verified with ads and a Marble King interview casts doubt on that date, so put the introduction of Vitro cats as 1954 or 1955. I think the first ones were single colored with four plump vanes. [Need confirmation on the first ones being only four-vaned.] That puts the ad below as shortly after the beginning. After that I get even fuzzier ... because I thought the cage style came pretty quickly, but now I see ads for about another decade which make me think the plump ones may have lasted at least ten years.

Alley is really easy to say, so I almost didn't say it on the first one. But then I felt pretty strong about it. I'm feeling less strong here ... less sure whether it's actual colors or just a bias toward Alley which makes me want to say "yes" .... but still odds seem pretty good it's Alley. The closer you get to basic red and white the harder it is to say.