Steph

I have a red one and a purple one. Bought them on ebay.

And yeah, they do look sorta like fiber optics, don't they. I wondered if that's what mine were. My first thought was goldstone, but then I went back and forth. The seller didn't know what they were, just that they were cool, with which I totally agree.

That was the title on some versions of the 1911 article here. :-)

Different versions were used as filler for years. The original might have appeared in the Boston Herald. Editors apparently picked and chose which parts of the original to include, trimming it as needed to fit in the space available. The version I chose for this post includes info on where the packaging was made.

There's one as late as 1918 with three of the same paragraphs, including the same production totals, but with a 4th paragraph about sizes made -- from 9/16" to 6" (size of a cannon ball). A different story appeared in 1930, without numbers, and it names the J. E. Albright Co. That one compared how Americans made clays to how it was done in Germany.

(click if you want a larger print version, but it's big -- 840 kb)

Here's what the Washington Post included at the end instead of mentioning where the bags were made:

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Here's the 1930 story as it appeared in a column called "Answers to Questions", by Frederic J. Haskin:

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These are for play, but not traditional play. Do we have them yet? (Hi everyone -- this is still one of my favorite threads. :-)

(source)

In case that doesn't count , one industrial use for mibs was "oil-drum cleansing".

A thread which shows the evolution of what appear to me to be some fairly convincing looking fake benningtons:

http://marbleconnection.com/i...showtopic=10722

diddo

expansion space

expansion space

More 1930's

1933 - ?

Comics

1939

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I think I have Morton salt ad from 1938 also. Maybe other years also.

I presume this to be a Berry Pink promo. Definitely have other examples of premiums which are or are likely his doing. Some say Marble King.

What color are these? Orange-ish?

"Terra cotta" is term which showed up frequently in connection with imported items at the turn of the last century, and might eventually lead to an answer.

Lots of things were made with terra cotta, if I understand correctly. Many options -- iiuc. For example, garden ornaments.

MFC

1913 - W. H. Ruch, former employee of the B & O Railroad, source: Massillon Evening Independent (OH), Dec. 27, 1913, p. 1

gorgeous! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Peltier

1944 - Daniel William Lawrence, Pres. of L. U. No. 61 of the American Flint Glass Workers' Union (source)

One more topic I wish I'd started awhile back. I read something recently about someone thinking Akro hadn't employed a glass chemist. That triggered a memory of some of the marble factory job titles I saw in censuses from the 20's and 30's. I can't remember if glass chemist was one at Akro. It seemed as if it might have been but the memory isn't coming into focus yet and I don't see it right now in my notes.

I don't think I even kept notes of all of the employee names I've found. But I will start a list now and try to keep it up. Random info someone might find a use for someday.

In 1957 a movie was made of the VFW national tourney in Seattle. It was shown at VFW meetings.

In 1951, Sellers Peltier was one of five "small town personalities" showcased on a Chicago television show. The WGN film crew had taken "movies" at the Peltier factory. Parts were dubbed into the program.

Do those films still exist?

Woohoo!

Didja know kids back in the day used lard to restore their mibs? Soak your alley taws in lard and the moons disappear.

Read one account where lard was used as a preventative measure also. Soak your new taw overnight and supposedly it's less likely to be damaged in the game the next day.

Well, for me there wasn't much doubt that Don's trophy had to be from 1940 or later. That flyer from 1940 already seemed to put an earliest date of 1939 on the trophy with the crouching boy. (Perhaps only as late as 1941 though.) And here is a photo of Berry Pink presenting an ordinary loving cup trophy to a winner in Brooklyn in 1939.

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So, I think we're zero-ing in on a time frame for Don's trophy. His trophy was more burnished and smaller than the ones we've seen pictured from 1940, so it was easy to guess it was older. But I suspect 1941 now. The 1941 tournaments didn't have the same fanfare as 1940. I'm guessing Pink went smaller that year.

And I haven't found any evidence of a Berry Pink Marble King tournament after that. At least nothing from 1942 to whenever Marble King became linked with the New Jersey tournaments.

LOL ... I wrote to ask the LA Times Reprint people about whether the 1924 article would be under copyright. And if so, how to get permission to share it with people interested in the history of toy marbles.

And the response was the exact table from that page I linked to above.

I still don't know if the article can be used.

This is the beginning of the article I'd like to share. I tried to summarize it before, but I'd so much rather show the whole thing. Perhaps this much would be "safe" by fair use, no?

BUY HOME-MADE AGATES, KIDS

by A. L. Godwin, in the Los Angeles Times

December 7, 1924, page C13

German Monopoly of Stone Marble Trade Heavily Cut Into by Local Concern, Which is Manufacturing Them from Onyx Supplied by Near-by Quarries

Having done his bit on the battlefields of France in defeating Germany, G. D. Mitchell, a fighting Irishman, is now carrying on a little war of his own in the commercial field against that country. Los Angeles is the scene of his activities and all signs point to a complete victory over the Teutons.

Through the enterprise of Mr. Mitchell, the ancient trade of cutting and polishing stones for toy marbles has been established here. Three years ago he arrived in Los Angeles with his wife and two small children. Badly gassed in the war he came to California to recuperate. While looking for a job Mr Mitchell met T. D. Meagher, a travelling salesman and a shrewd business man. Meagher had an idea. Mitchell developed it. It was this:

To capture the old-established agate toy marble trade from Germany.

Mr. Meagher, while traveling for his company during the war, discovered that America depended on Germany for marbles and that the war had cut off the supply. The demand remained. Millions of boys all over the United Stated and Canada had to have their agate "alley taws."

"Our optimism in believing that we could provide serious competition to Germany for the stone toy marble trade of the world was fully justified," said Mr. Mitchell, for while Germany has to import agate from South America we can get onyx-marble in unlimited supply from Lower California."

. . .

To be continued?

Something which will definitely be continued soon is the story of the California Agate Co., which at some point came to be the California Onyx Co.

Here is a teaser:

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Photo courtesy of Doug Mitchell, grandson and namesake of G. D. Mitchell

I was sent these pix for this thread. The mibs are on their way too. :-)

The header sure looks old. I'll fantasize that they are 50's Hong Kong until I hear further information. We're curious about what WL might mean. Any ideas?

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um, here's a list of commonwealth countries to get an idea of where the "empire" has been. I hoped that would give me a lead on "WL" but if it's there I missed it.

This is a good summary of things I've read before about when copyrights expire.

http://www.unc.edu/~unclng/public-d.htm

There is an article published in 1924 which I would like to post. The newspaper in which it is published has a pretty strict policy about copyrights and about obtaining permission to use its articles. I believe that copyright protects the PDF format of the article online. But would the actual text now be in the public domain? I need to sort that out, hmmm?

you spend hours at the library looking for these?

I moiderize time online.

This was one of James Harvey Leighton's enterprises, extremely short-lived if I am not mistaken, like about 2 months from opening to filing for receivership (???). It got quite a deal of press actually, some political -- coz patriotic boys could buy american-made! After this he helped Martin Christensen get set up. And after that he opened a factory in Barberton. (more about JHL -- looks like he fit in one more company between 1900 and 1902)

The name of Bill's image is PurpleYellowBlueGermanFlame.jpg

I have some red cage style cats with black accents which do a passable impression of oxblood.

1916

Most of an ad for B. Illfelder & Company, "sole agents for Christensen's Onyx Marbles". What would we call MFC's now if the Christensen Agate Co hadn't co-opted the name?

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