Steph

Too too fun!!!!

Oh yes, I got the bag in the mail today.

And it is delicate. No ... it looks delicate. It is old. A little more sturdy than it looks. But it does look old.

Cloudy thin plastic bag. Not brittle. One of the mibs looks clear, not a cat eye, or else the vanes are super skinny. (I don't see vanes.)

An interesting variety of vane structures in the rest. Some a little banana-y. I think maybe all 4-vaners, technically, but some lie in a single plane. One definite 4-vaner has vanes with sharp edges, yet the vanes manage to look inflated, like the dried pod of a plant I used to be familiar with.

Some of the base glass is aqua. Or else that's a lot of reflection off of aqua cores. Might be bottle green in the base of some but some of the bases are clear, at least distinctly more clear in comparison with the aquas.

I'm gonna have to study this slowly. This is one bag I won't be opening so I need to study it carefully to understand the vanes.

Cool beans!

I'd say yes.

Who can be sure about the date but 50's and 60's is the range generally given for 4-vane single-colored cats. Umm, actually, I think I see 50's given as the date on 4-vaners more often than 60's, but yeah, 60's sounds okay.

That weird gloopy mish mashy thing which Jabos sometimes do is why I thought the invention of a name like "floater" was a good idea. It's great for cases such as ones where one cannot easily tell whether a mib is an opaque ribbon in a transparent base or a transparent ribbon in an opaque base. But I can see the name reaching out to encompass the distinct transparent swirls on the one end of the spectrum and the more patchy transparent-based mibs on the other side of the spectrum. Sure it would be somewhat redundant that way. But it would be natural, and we can deal with overlapping names. We're smart.

It's a cool word. It deserves breathing room to find its niche.

One corollary question is whether it would apply to non-jabos. For example, there are some sorta nebulous gloopy Champs floating around. (pun intended) . Could they be called 'floaters'? would that be a good thing? an okay thing? a confusing thing? a downright bad thing?

Something which could suppress adoption is if the originator or early adopters are very proprietary with it. It could be frustrating for them if it morphs into something other than what they intended. But if they keep too tight rein on it, they could strangle it and there might be no more adopters. The evolution of language is tricky.

If it is just about Jabos, then the early adopters can maintain more control of the word. If it's considered a candidate for adoption in the wider marble world, then more people have an interest in whether or not it gets used and how it is used. There are different criteria for language adoption and most are not "rational". Expression is a gut level phenomenon. It'll be fun to see how much traction "floater" has over time.

Reminds me of ... what is that one ... oh yeah, Vitro Opals. A cool collector name which stuck ... but I get the idea that most of us are not using the name exactly how it was originally applied -- matching up in some of the cases but not all ....... I don't know quite what to think about it. The people who coined it don't seem to argue a lot about names, at least not in my hearing. But where does that leave the name? Just stick it on the most obvious cases? but what about when people do want to stretch it in what seems a logical way, a way which might actually be consistent with the coiners' intention but isn't what 90% of the users picture when they say "Opal" .... what then? I don't know.

except at first, coz at first there's a crispy icy layer on the ice cream. I love that part. :Cartoon_177:

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:

Measurement: 7/8" - 31/32" ....

Vintage or Era: Lauscha and the surrounding area, about 1920/30, found in an old marbles factory store here.

(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.

yeah I thought Vitro too - but didn't Vitro mark their boxes too?

who made completely plain unmarked boxes?

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:

Thats a beautiful marble! I love red white and blues! You can really tell a simularity with pelts. It's the reds /oranges / yellows and the green bases. Are there boxes also with kokomos? ( like akro boxes) Thanks for the great information!

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