Steph

With the Akro v. Master case we have a unique perspective though. "The court personally inspected this machine in the plant of the defendant in the presence of both parties, ...." We get a pretty detailed eye witness view. Oooh oooh oooh (channeling Arnold Horshack) ... this inspection probably happened in the mid-30's. The ruling was dated January 16, 1937. So maybe the early sunbursts were done by injection and then by the mid-30's Master was back to the single source method the court observed. That theory might be flawed since the court said that they didn't see any history of patent violation, and that what the plaintiff had supposedly seen and complained about was from an experimental phase at Master and the court saw no evidence that the marbles were made commercially. But anyway ... the court was looking at relatively late marbles, so my theory about the nicest tiger eye styles being made early could still hold and the court was studying how Master made the less flashy marbles.

The investigation for the Akro vs. Master lawsuit said Master didn't use the injection method. Maybe I'm incorrect about when the nice Tiger Eye type Sunbursts were made. Maybe they weren't made as early as I thought.

I didn't see a patent either. Got the impression that they used what was at that point general knowledge in their trade and then tinkered.

How were these Tiger Eye style Sunbursts made? The results of the lawsuit Akro filed against Master suggest that Master was just using one pot of glass and not injection. How could these come about with those conditions? I am mystified.

Now I want to start a thread about what the differences between Sparklers and Sunbursts actually are. How different was the process which made them?! How the heck could Sunbursts have been made if they weren't done with injection? ... I think I'll do that now ......

The Freese method patents under discussion: https://www.google.com/patents/US1529947 https://www.google.com/patents/US1529948

Down near the bottom, in the Conclusions of Law section, this was interesting: Reading between the lines it sounds like it's possible that Master was doing some of the same things Akro was doing which Akro considered special ... But we can't be sure since the lawsuit wasn't about that. It was only about whether Master was involved in patent infringement.

Oooh ... it starts to get interesting .... I think this might be getting closer to what you want ...... Go down to #17 and start reading from there: The next sections talk about Freese methods and how Master's method differs from Freese methods, and what part of the technology was known before Freese. After reading those sections, it makes it very hard to understand how Master got such nice results in their tiger-eye style Sunbursts.

It's morning so I'm making an attempt to read again. (Was not easy last night! lol) Method of delivering glass to rollers is mentioned, but in a way which makes it seem inconsequential:

I could be wrong. I didn't read every detail. Sounds like it the lawsuit was about the rollers, not the injection method. Definitely rollers were involved. If injectors came in, I didn't see where. Part of the "Findings of Fact":

https://casetext.com/case/akro-agate-co-v-master-marble-co

https://www.google.com/patents/US1761623 https://www.google.com/patents/US1880916

*bat signal to the patent researchers*

CACs?

I had to go to the post office last night. I should say yesterday afternoon. But it was dark. And it was 4.

Wow ... thanks for the monitor background!

!!!!

That poor little pup was in great distress, so laughing doesn't exactly seem appropriate .... but ................. so funny. And I'm sure he feels loved enough with his main man to make up for it all.

That layer of different shades floating on top of the main transparent ribbon is what made me think of Alley -- Pennsboro Alley, in fact. I don't know if other makers had that kind of layered transparency. But Alley sure did.

I suppose that was a strange use of the word "early" for a company which existed since the teens. Akro seemed to have a revolutionary switch from its slag days to its cork days, right at 1929-1930, and so I meant that Sparklers came early in that switch.

I think it was early. Early enough for Master's founders to take some of the know-how with them in 1930. Their first appearance in Akro ads of which I am aware was in 1931. They are not in the 1929 ad I know about. I can't remember seeing a 1930 ad, well, not a full Akro ad which listed the company line. (A 1930 advertisement from a distributor does mention Akro Tri-Color Agates ... the marbles known to some as Specials ... and I don't see Sparklers there but that doesn't mean anything.) I still see Sparklers in an ad which I think which was printed in 1934 or later. (I'm consulting American Machine-Made Marbles and this thread, http://marbleconnection.com/topic/10676-akro-timeline/, to refresh my memory.)

I don't see Jabo either. Messed up cork?

Agree.

My first guess would have been Alley.