Steph

If the marbles are protected well enough there's nothing to take the shine away. Glass is much harder than air! I had a set of Akro ades and oxbloods from the 1930's that a very tidy little boy had stored in a 1933 World's Fair cigar box for decades. They were so pristine I didn't even know how to describe them when I put them up for sale. I got ... and sold ... them in my first few months of collecting. If there were any I wanted back from what I first sold, it would be the ones in that box. *sigh* When I expressed my surprise to the now old man's wife about how well preserved the marbles were, she said "You should see how nice his train set looks". Apparently even as an 8-year-old he took great care of his belongings.

Pretty figure ....... (that's my subtle thread bump )

I doubt that the "snotty" looking version would approach the value of a Cobra. I'm not sure about the striped transparent version. Interesting question.

Bumping. It definitely has an old look to it. But I don't know whose .....

Warning: much xenophobic and racist language here and even more at the source. My apologies for that. What "glass marbles of much beauty" do you think might have been coming from Japan in 1907? Source: http://books.google....MAAJ&pg=RA3-PA3 Thanks again to bumblebee for the lead.

Goldstone would be the original aventurine. The mineral known as aventurine was named after the glass. Sometimes the sparkle is intentional. Sometimes it isn't. People have intentionally overloaded art glass with the chemicals it takes to make the sparkle. I would have thought that the aventurine we see in marbles from the 1930's through 1970's was accidental but I am not sure. Jabo had it intentionally in the last few years but I think they got the aventurine premade from art glass suppliers, as opposed to mixing the chemicals from batch and getting the sparkle that way. Much ... but I don't think all ... aventurine is copper based. Here is a patent filed in 1947 which is about making green colored glass. http://www.google.co...id=abprAAAAEBAJ They mention an aventurine which appears to be chromium based, not copper. I think this patent is more interested in suppressing the aventurine but it notes that sometimes it is made on purpose.

That's unusual. Could it be a Peltier? ????

yowzer!

I still can't even contemplate using cat's eyes in a fish bowl. Congrats on your find!

Yellow Jacket ad, "red and yellow in every marble", so some which we call All-Reds may have been purposely sold as Yellow Jackets but might only command All-Red pricing, or some middle ground.

Besides the gorgeous marbles, it's very interesting to see the Japanese box in a collection with such an early date associated with it.

Suhweet!

Happy Birthday Howard!

I think they're Akro experimentals.

Just knowing that they're amphibians stops me from grossing out. Which is kinda weird. If they were identical-looking snakes or worms or bugs I would be shuddering. Silly, I know, but

... but then I noticed they looked egg shaped ... Bigger view Article: http://www.nydailyne...ticle-1.1027077

The green ones are interesting but I don't have a guess for who made them. Having so many similar ones together would suggest that they might be modern. But I don't recognize them as a modern marble. The green ones came with a shooter? That sort of sounds like it might have been a Mega Marble set. I still don't recognize the style. But Mega does sell nets with lots of small ones and one big one.

Wow. Thank you so much. It's awesome to hear the historical details. In your album, the greyish one with the yellowish highlights is striking. Many interesting features showing in many of the close-ups. Very cool.

I don't think that Majolica is a manufacturer. It's a type of ceramic.

Those colorful marbles look downright huge. Tree size. Interesting perspective.

Lovely. Wonder what the story behind them is.

1960 give or take for at least some of them.

With the sort of neon look of the swirls maybe Champion?

interesting piece