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.