Steph

I'll say a blend between riding the winning name, and going with accepted custom. Glass marble companies did try consciously to compare their marbles to real stone - in what we would now call a fraudulent manner. However, "agate" had become an acceptable name for glass marbles in the 1800's. I need to confirm the dates but I believe that by the early 1900's, real stone marbles were called "realers" to distinguish them from glass ones.* In other words, "agate" was a name for toy marbles, whether made of stone or glass or even ceramic. And so it would be natural for someone who sold toy marbles to consider that as a possible choice for their company name. *edit: and then even the name "realer" was co-opted by Peltier for glass marbles, but that's another story! lol

Weren't citrus prices chump change compared to the money paid for exotics? lol So what's your theory on who would have had the skill to make them?

Steve, I knew that you had mischaracterized Mike's contributions on the board. For example, I had seen materials he had posted which you said he never shared. I wondered why you felt the need to speak for him, especially about details which to me seemed to pertain very little to the Citruses. For example, why would a marble which looks like it was made from mid-1930's or later glass show up on an urn dated 1931? Even if we don't have "proof", we have evidence with which to make educated guesses. I will probably not change my quoting habits. I had a reason to focus on what you said about Mike's sources. The rest of your post was still there for all to see.

What did your last paragraph have to do with whether or not Citrus marbles and pieces were found at the factory? I don't see how including your last paragraph would have changed my question, or your eventual answer - should you have actually chosen to answer my question.

What does that have to do with whether or not Citrus marbles and pieces were found at the factory?

When Migbar says citruses were found at the factory, I believe him. I have yet to see any reason to question his credibility with regard to Peltish matters. .

I thought that the bag Al posted contained marbles close to an inch. How large are citruses? Also, to me the stripings don't look very close to the typical citrus variations. I waited to see what others thought and Mon confirmed my doubt. My guess would have been that the marbles Al posted were made decades apart from the citruses. I would have guessed the citruses to be an older marble - say from the 1930's, and thus from the time when original packaging would have included mesh bags, not plastic. .... just my hunch based on the general appearance of the marbles.

It seems to be going along just fine. Thank you for your concern.

WOW - great pix!!!!!

Just a stray thought. I don't really expect anyone to know .... but if you do ..... How were they made? How were the parts formed for those very first machines? I can't even picture how custom sized rectangular pieces would be made so I'm really flummoxed by the thought of how spiral rollers might have been crafted back in the day ....

I don't remember if I learned the name of the shop. The name of the machinist I was thinking of was George Murphy. That's given in AMMM's Playrite chapter. I've seen a little more info on the shop and workers there, but I think it's spread out between the AMMM chapters so I'll have to do more reading.

I phrased that wrong. I made it sound like I thought the marble companies made their own machines. I was thinking about them using local machinists. Lots of the 1940's machines seem traceable to one particular WV shop, iirc. Tell us more about the Miller machines Peltier had. Also, I'm still fuzzy on what constitutes a "machine"? Rollers, tanks, feeders? Varies depending on context?

I want to start archiving again. Say, threads which are three months old or more? If there's anything I move over which you were still wanting to add to, just let me know and I can move it back. Also, you can add to things while they're still in the archives if you would prefer less fanfare. Suggestions/reminders of threads to move to the archives are welcome.

Hi there, Rog. Nice tribute. Hope you had good Christmas. ( :

Here's a link: http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=280605750726

Good find, Mon. I should have remembered where that was! The posts in the archives survived the storage crunch. Glad that one made it through.

Glass was big business - all kinds of glass articles. Miller had plenty to keep himself busy without and/or before branching into machines which made spheres. I don't think there was the kind of marble espionage which you might be imagining at that time. The person who stole the designs from MFC was a trusted family friend and an officer of the company. One thing to keep in mind is that much of Miller's emphasis was on how to feed glass into/onto the devices which would shape the final product. That was good for much more than marbles. A possibly interesting question would be to track down the companies Miller sold marble machines to. That 1948 story specifically mentioned toy marbles but most toy marbles were made in West Virginia, and didn't most West Virginia companies make their machines locally? I wonder if Miller's clients might have tended to have more of an industrial bent. For instance, from whom did people who made things such as fiber glass ingots get their machines?

Some additional dates: I'm fairly sure - pretty much certain - that Miller wasn't making marble machines at the beginning. Martin F. Christensen filed the patent for his groundbreaking glass marble making machine in 1902. Blobs of glass would be dropped by workers onto the machine, and the machine would make them round. Akro was the 2nd company in the U.S. to use machines to manufacture marbles. They started making marbles in 1914, with machine designs stolen from Martin Christensen. I assume that whichever marble machines Miller made would have been built with technology he learned and/or developed after 1914. Before that time, Martin Christensen had a pretty solid monopoly on the market. To the best of my understanding.

Sure thing. If anything in that batch explains the "Miller swirls", I don't know about it. I can't remember seeing anyone explain the Pelts which go so wild that you might not be able to find their seams. That's where it seems the problem with the Miller legend is, if I understand correctly. Miller made machines ... but did they have anything to do with swirly Pelts?

Patents and other items involving the name "Miller", to be sorted later. 1. Process and apparatus for feeding glass Inventor: William J. Miller Assignee: Hartford Empire Company Patent number: 1717802 Filing date: Jan 31, 1921 Issue date: Jun 18, 1929 2. Machine for Manufacturing Marbles and Similar Articles Inventor: William J. Miller Assignee: Victor J. Greene Patent number: 1601699 Filing date: Dec 12, 1924 Issue date: Sep 28, 1926 3. Was this the one which is called THE Hartford-Empire patent? Process and Apparatus for Feeding Glass Inventor: William J. Miller Assignee: Hartford Patent number: 1942035 Filing date: Dec 20, 1929 Issue date: Jan 2, 1934 Material still to be sorted: Some history as told in 1948 Marble making machinery is mentioned in connection with the William J. Miller Company in Golden Progress: History and Official Program of the 50th Anniversary Celebration of Swissvale, Pennsylvania, 1898-1948. I hadn't realized he had his own company. Was he also affiliated with any particular marble manufacturer? The book online is broken into parts. The marble mention is on p. 81, found in Part 7. Title page: Part 2 (click to enlarge - it's kinda large, might need to double click to get to full size) Mr. Miller had many patents on glass. Plugging in the keywords, miller, glass and swissvale at the Google patents page pulls up many entries. http://www.google.com/patents?q=miller+glass+swissvale Leave out the word "glass" and you get bunches more. He apparently did a lot of work with pottery also. And had a "pottery engineering company", also in Swissvale? Which if any of his other patents might be connected with marble making? Reminder to self: Did we once have something specific about a Miller machine being used by a lithographer?

The times I remember the word "checking" with glass, it was said by contemporary marble makers describing some sort of cracks in the marbles.

I might remember seeing the story Mon is talking about, about the cache of previously unrecognized types found in the east. If I did, it might only have been once and it might not be on the board anymore. A couple of years worth of posts were lost during a storage crunch.

Wow, they make great looking eyes! Kudos to whoever realized they would!

Hiya Sue! And a special Merry Christmas just for you!

This patent filed in 1947 is interesting in different ways. It's about the creation of aventurine in batch glass. The patent itself is about stopping the aventurine from crystallizing. However, it also points out that some people would try to achieve the crystallization on purpose in their batches, for art glass. Green-Colored Opal Glass