Steph

LOL. gloop gloop. (my impression of the ice cream in a rootbeer float)

neat ! and wild ;-)

Well, I know historically when and why marbles were sold. At least part of the time and part of the reason. I don't know how it started. It might have been a demand for marbles ... or for novelty. But in the mid-40's, it was the opposite: a shortage of gumballs rather than a need for more marbles. During WWII sugar was in short supply, gum bases which had been imported were no longer available, and people were stressed out and were chewing more gum ... until it was gone. A 1942 article said about people chewing more because of stress and strain, but before long you just couldn't get gum. I think in the early 40's some gum machines might have been physically converted to allow them to dispense marbles. In the mid-40's some vending machines were made more versatile out of the box. Nothing I saw in ads gave me the impression that these would have been permanenty designated for the sale of marbles. Marbles were one option in a changing marketplace. But I only came to this planet in 1962, and didn't pay attention to gumball machines until I had been here for many years. ;-) Here is an ad from 1946: (click to enlarge) There was an ad from earlier in the 1940's which mentioned a "cherry red" marble as a prize marble. Could those have been Flinties? No brand was given in that ad so that doesn't answer about Akro branded stickers being on vending machines, but it's sorta interesting. I think maybe I better gather up all 'my' ads and see what I have. I have another project I need to finish this week. Maybe I'll clip out ads for breaks.

How cool is this box?!!!! From the seller's description: (click to enlarge)

A follow-up to this thread, Cat Eye's With Holes On The Vane .... For the record, one day recently I had my cat's eyes out and I found my very most bubbly one which definitely had holes through the vanes not just reflective disks resting on them. It's a four-vane green cat. All four vanes have bubbles, staggered lines of bubbles. The whole effect reminds me of a fern. I looked further. I found many many cat's eyes with bubbles in the vanes. Some had what looked like bubbles on the surface but almost invariably there was at least a thin-ness in the vane 'under' the bubble. The otherwise solid vanes looked translucent there. And many had bubbles all the way through. At first I imagined all the holes came from bubbles in the base glass which shoved their way through the vanes. But if baseglass could have bubbles, why couldn't vane glass? Now I think it did sometimes. Bottom line: I have cat's eyes with distinct holes in the vanes. Seems a lot more common than I expected when Ness started her thread in February. Not a lot of standouts, but many clearly visible when I'm on the lookout for them.

Possibly interesting question: What are/would be/might be the differences between floaters and transparent swirls? I have an opinion on the matter, natch, but would like to hear what others think.

Gary, sounds like a good point about wear on the labels. PlanB, I was under the impression that the ones which said "marbles" were fakes, at least the ones with the word etched into the glass. Real machines, possibly from the 40's to 60's, but the word "marbles" was added later -- is what I've heard. This one caught my eye because it didn't have the etching. Are you aware of any of them which said marbles in etching or decal form or whatever while they were actually dispensing marbles?

there would be liability issues.

Haven't heard of Vitro stock boxes from that era being marked. This is another mere hunch but I'm guessing that perhaps none were. at least not in the 30's. I'm thinking that if they had been marked -- or if many had been marked -- more might have been preserved and info about the style name "tri-lite" might have surfaced earlier in modern times. not to mention the names "du-lite" and "clear-lite". As I said, that's only a hunch. Don't take it to the bank just yet. Maybe someone else will confirm or correct.

Well, he would have meant Akro Tri-Colors. But Akro marked their boxes, like so: Pretty sure this is a Vitro Tri-Lite stock box. I.e., Vienna Vitros. I haven't been keeping all that close a look at box prices. Mostly I window shop and don't check the price tags. lol. but Vitro boxes don't come up anywhere near as often as Akro, and looking at the contents and measuring how fast my pulse is racing, I just have the idea that it would have gone higher if it had been i.d.-ed as Vitro.

What do we think about this one? Anyone seen this type of labeling back in the day, or aware of it as a modern trend? The seller doesn't say their location. Just "collection nation". Simpler than the usual etched ones. Almost makes it possibly almost maybe convincing sorta could be possibly I don't know what do you think? Same seller also sold a Beatles one recently:

This use has been stated before, but I've never seen anything like this set before. Set of 4 Large Antique 1 5/8 Swirl Marble Castors :Emoticon-jawdrop: LOL ... I'd been good about not looking at general ebay listings until just now when that box o' boxes Bo posted sent me off the wagon.

Oops, it looks like a friendly ebayer misled this seller. Just a hunch but I bet he coulda gotten more for this if it had been accurately listed. http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewI...em=170329177104 wowowowowowow

LOL Ain't they just! It's so fun to have two little ones together! They're a laugh riot. Almost makes me want more. I think I better go hug my 9-year-old bebbes now before I start having unfaithful thoughts! p.s. I suppose we could bear to look at a few dogs too ... if any are brave enough to show their mugs .... Speaking of bears .... it's bear foot weather you know .....

I didn't say that. Did anybody hear me say that? Maybe it was Jon Lovitz. Yeah, that's the ticket.

I have blue based Vitro cats now !!! And more St. Mary's cats. And a coupla nice Pelt Rainbos I didn't have before. And an unusual MK rainbow (I think that's what it is .... ) .... And I can't say who sent it to me because someone might say there is a conspiracy .... but heck, some people are just darn nice!!!!!

This looks like it might be a closer up view of the contents of the box in the WVMCC pic:

Yes, there were boxes. (and thanks Joe, for showing the rest of the kokos to go with that red white and blue clip!) I think this link at the WVMCC website will take you to a photo of a box: http://www.wvmcc.citymax.com/page/page/727505.htm Here's another pair of bags, pic from ebay (ignore the vitros in between): And another pair posted here before, surrounded by other kokos I believe. (click to enlarge) Here are those two newspaper items I mentioned, both from 1941: (click to enlarge) . . .

ZZ, I think that's not likely. Most tank wash mibs probably weren't guinea-like. The frit is incidental to the true purpose of the process. Just a little something extra from what I gather, and done on a very limited basis. If you have that one sitting in England, I think we can quite safely conclude it was made as an intentional frit mib for regular production and not by Jabo. my $.02

Since you're so nice to specially remark on everyone else's kitties, let me say how distinctive Big Boy's black whisker spots look. Handsome lad. :-) We've had a variety of aggressiveness and ragdollness in our house. We've been fortunate enough to be able to work around the differences. We still have relatively young skin, though Jimmy has diabetes and I'm a little concerned about how it heals. We sweep up broken china when cats are too rambunctious. And I hold Kedo's paws steady when he's feeling cuddly -- as his attitude can change in a flash and noses suffer.

"The Batweasel" was my husband's name for a skinny little boy with a bat's ears. He was Jeanann's only kitten in her last litter. She was the absolute queen of the house. I pretended to mind. She was still kittenish when she died at age 20. Here's a pic of her at her prime. We also allow cats of lighter colors into the house, in spite of how hard it is to deal with all those different colors of cat hair on our good clothes. (Black isn't too hard to work around! LOL) . Our last housemate is Kedo. I am Kedo and I do not see any black cats.

Oh goodness, your new avatar is the best yet!

bahahaha, yes, I thought of you when I saw that! you're the reason I didn't even try to see what the article would look like with that end part trimmed out. lol

LOL Well if the rules are to provide pix of the actual bosses of the house and not pre-captioned internet cuties, here are two of the people I answer to, Joe and Brother, from 9 years go. (Their companion has passed away since then. Moment of silence for the best Batweasel there ever was.)

( Being a cat lover, I feel a need to try to distract you now with some menacing puppy eyes. :icon_lmao: )