I'll have to leave those questions to someone else. Beyond Lemonade and Limeade I'm not that good with collectors' names for the different Moss Agates.
I wouldn't call it wannabe or messed up. That implies there's something less or wrong about it. But that's a normal state for that style of marble.
If you're having trouble trying to decide whether to call it a corkscrew or not, then just say Lemonade or Limeade. In my opinion.
It's understood that they won't necessarily be standard corks.
Maybe someone else will have a different opinion or something more helpful to say.
Some people don't call Akro Ades corkscrews at all because they're so often swirly.
I might still use "corkscrew" in my description somewhere. But you almost don't need to because the collectors' name -- Akro Lemonade or Akro Limeade -- is such a clear identifier of the marble type
There are differing opinions about when they were made and where the swirliness tended to occur along their timeline. I think they were introduced early on. Maybe in 1930. And it is believed that they were swirly then -- which would explain why Moss Agates were said to have "exquisite patterns". But they were still being sold in packaging which was patented years later.
This package was advertised as "new" in 1935. Do these look swirly?
And I think they were also sold in 1936 Popeye packaging. Hard to see some of these might be Ades but I think they were and not hard to see that they're swirly.
I don't remember ever hearing anyone talk about it.
It's sort a cool.
"Experimental" is a word I avoid. I think it's overused. Someone once posted that Akro's true experimental marbles were large -- I can't remember how large -- should look that up -- but I think it was at least 3/4". Might have been 1". He sounded like he knew what he was talking about.
But a lot of people seem to use "experimental" for marbles which were likely just rejects.
And sometimes oddballs just happen.
To me the German cats look different from the ones in the box.
In the box the vanes look sharper and smoother to me. And that particular shade of turquoise always makes me think of Japanese (or Vitro if the vanes look right, but in this case Japanese).
From the March 1932 Boys' Life article, New-Fashioned Kites and Old-Fashioned Marbles, by Dan Beard
p.s., remember copies of Boys' Life are online for marble searches at Google Books
Hi Joe. Thanks for making sure we didn't miss that. Winnie posted about them yesterday, before the news hit our continent, I think. Interesting discussion there.
http://marbleconnection.com/topic/19077-this-was-news-today/
I don't know how rare orange is. I'd consider the possibility that it's not Akro. Here's a thread with mossy marbles from different makers/sites. http://marbleconnection.com/topic/7863-moss-agate-type-marbles When you read the thread keep in mind it was made in 2008. I might need to edit a little. (:
As to translucence or not, the yellow here looks opaque to me: