Steph

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.

"jerky" is a good way to describe ribbons that I associate with Ravenswood.

Great bump! keeperthread

What do you mean by "filaments". The "cage style" is later than this style. The cage style lasted all the way to about 1990. I don't know if any cages were made concurrently with these, but to the best of my knowledge these are not very far removed from Vitro's first single-color offerings. That's a luscious photograph.

... yes .... each got at least as much as the will said they should, so they live happily ever after.

I see what you mean. Something kinda like this. Well I don't have a good guess for what it is, so maybe you are on the right track.

Pennsboro Alley rather than St. Marys. (Earlier than St. Marys.)

I'm getting a strong Alley vibe here.

Oy. I don't see Master or Asian. The seams are relatively long and straight. The Master and Asian seams are typically shorter and more sharply curved. However, I don't recognize this color combo. The structure kinda says Akro, but I am not committed to that. Size?

"boy sprouts" ... reading an old letter from my Dad ... that's what he called those kids who go camping and work on merit badges and stuff ... what a card ....

cute!

Well that was funsadfun.

This is true!

Aaaaaaaaah. <---- involuntary utterance transcribed as well as I can

Probably Asian on #1 and #2. Maybe early-ish. Not sure I would default to Japanese on the large size marbles. But I guess could be. Vitro on the greens. My first thought was Marble King on the white, but with you pointing out a second color I'm not sure. The second color usually makes us lean toward Vitro.

#2 looks like some kind of a banana. American made. Peltier or Master. Leaning Peltier. #3 is Asian. Maybe Japanese. Early-ish. (So maybe as early as 1950's.) Agree with early-ish Japanese on the 2nd to last. The fatness of the vanes in the very last one makes me think of modern Mexican. So I'm not sure on that one. You could put it in with your Japanese ones and see how much at home it feels.

... sorry one's missing but that's a vintage lot, so good chance we're looking at a vintage marble. Akro is sounding good.

Hopefully we're looking at an Akro corkscrew with a fatter than usual ribbon, so it's not very twisty.

I am fond of the themed runs like Marble Mountain. But longest run sounds like something you MUST try for sometime. Now could be the time.

I think I remember most of this one. I need to try to reconstruct it. And then decide if I like it! Yes, I remember. And each son ends up with slightly more than the will said he should get, so it gets my stamp of approval.

I definitely need more vaseline. And an Akro Superman. Believe it or not, I don't have one yet. Superman and vaseline corks and slags. Need to go put those on my list while I'm thinking of it. (I just started making a list of lists. And I need to add some marbles to it.)