Steph

I've also heard some reference to a slightly different shape of staple 70 years ago. Whatever is right, having the new ones would prove new, but having the old style wouldn't prove old. I ran out of staples last night. I have pounds of them somewhere, but where? So naturally I went to our antique office equipment nook and took out my husband's 1935 Bates Model B. It's totally awesome by the way. Very smooth. It makes the staples as you need them, from a spool of fine brass wire. So smooth. I'm already hooked. I don't want to go back! LOL. If I keep using it though, I'll need this guy's site. But eneeway ... we saw recently where someone used pre-rusted staples. Shouldn't be too hard to find some old ones. Hmmm, I suppose we're giving away a lot of hints to those guys who want to fool us ... but is that a reason not to talk about it?

There sure are a lot of people with birthdays! Hope it's been a good one.

1917 My guess is that this is an Akro reference. Proceedings of the Forty-First Convention of the American Flint Glass Workers' Union, 1917, p69

IMHO (and in the more educated opinion of some others): the original imperials were silver oxbloods. After that many different, premium types of Akros were distributed in the Imperial boxes. Perhaps the originals didn't go over as well as had been hoped and there were surplus boxes. I posted a number of examples recently, and the letter introducing them. I think I have at least one more example. My plan was to gather everything together and post them all at once somewhere, sometime, when I could approach it systematically. Here's a draft of the post. (click to enlarge) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The 2nd to last box was Craig's but this is the marble Craig calls an Imperial. He had it for sale in December:

It looks "real" in a way. But it would backfilled with MK's as Brian notes. Using old stock as Al notes. Buddy was a Ravenswood brand. (click to enlarge) (from ebay)

As usual I feel bad about sounding flip. I wrote to the guy about a couple of the auctions. Mentioned the modern marble kings. He seems open to the information. I'd forward him a link to this thread so he could get more info, except that I sounded so cavalier! I am intrigued by the mesh bags though. And it would be fun to have some ... just for fun.

Knowing that Bogard did sometimes purchase Marble Kings to fill their play marble orders ... and Marble King sometimes used Bogard marbles to fill their industrial orders ... I had to look closely. (yeah, even with the bright Vacors in the 6-count bag I considered the possibility that they might be age-appropriate lol) The rest of their auctions do not inspire confidence though, so there ya go. How would I go about getting some of that mesh packaging? I kinda like it. Has anyone trademarked the name "Fantasy brand marbles"? That'd be fun. FWIW, sometimes backfilled packaging can have good mibs. This was presented as a backfilled bag, but one which still happened to have very nice Champs in it. Just newer (and fewer) than that particular header would originally have been found on:

Ouch, ebay got you. Not too surprising. It's so easy to get bounced. Maybe easier if you're honest than otherwise. Gotta learn to be vague and say what you want with innuendo so it can never be held against you. .... (JUST KIDDING!) Yesterday I almost added that if it didn't meet your reserve this time around, then you might do well by breaking it up into smaller lots. But I really don't know the best way to sell near mint popeyes. So I'm just rooting for you to do well this time. I do know (believe) that when you ship them they should be individually wrapped and then bundled gently and shipped in a box, with enough cushioning to assure they won't get bruised even if they're dropkicked across the cargo hold. ... Well, if you have been buying mibs off of ebay, then you probably already have very good ideas about how to ship or not to ship marbles, but in case you've been buying locally and hadn't yet thought out the shipping part ....

Green Bennies! Thanks Brad! Purposely not commenting on anything else ... coz there'd be too much to say

I tried to find mine but I think I may have gotten rid of them. (I know, can you believe it?) They sorta frustrated me. I remember at least one which had silvery bubbles on the vanes. Probably aqua. Another definitely had holes, with bubbles going through the vanes. How many? Can't remember. Not a large number. It was green. It was a little bigger than average but not a shooter. And I never could figure out what I wanted to do with them. The colors weren't quite right for me to want to save them for that. I like vivid and bright colors on my foreign cats. And the green one might have been nicked. hmmm. Can't quite remember but I know I kept going back and forth over what to do with them. I may finally have decided that I was spending too much time worrying about damaged error marbles and I may have put them in a big lot to get rid of so I wouldn't "waste" any more time with them.

Whoops, Kevin didn't read your whole auction, Rookie. So, this is your first one? Nice bunch. I hope you do well. There might be a vocabulary issue to keep in mind for the future. I'm not certain, but I think akro collectors might tend to count colors differently on popeyes than on other corks. Whether that's the case or not, you made it clear what you meant with your color count. I like the the purple and mauve combo. The green red and yellow is nice too. Um, precise size measurements would be a good thing, in general. Maybe more important with popeyes. Not sure why I have the impression of ebayers being more sticklers for popeye auctions than others, but I do. You sure about the 3/4" (give or take 1/16")? (Yeah, I'm a busybody. lol)

I nominate green. :Happy_457: How to fold a shamrock from a dollar bill I almost started a thread about the variety of green benningtons, and I'd really like to see that! but aventurine would be OKAY ..... :icon_lmao:

Happy Birthday Windy and Brian!

I don't know about #1, but it's good to again hear someone acknowledge the possibility of an aquamarine-like Akro. Back when Kevin posted an aquamarine-like marble with ox, I brought up the subject of a similar marble being made by Akro, but no one would have any of that. I'm still thinking about the ones Ric mentioned on the bottom row, #3 and #4 in particular. But hey, thanks for the cheesecake !!

Bob knows that. But is it partially or wholy machine made? Here's his unabbreviated question: I'm intrigued by it having both a tail and the long single seam. Pretty wild.

Coolness!

What's the highest number of colors you've ever seen in a CAC?

will do

amazing depth. What's that spot hovering in the middle?

Clouds are awesome. Is that an opal in the shiny vortex?

I'll wait until I see it before I decide whether to be offended. I've always had a soft spot for Bill Pullman though. That's funny. Two knives mysteriously ended up in my posession with no explanation of where they came from. But only one of them was a theater knife. sorry.

Cool, thanks. The only 'other' one I could think of offhand was MibAuctions. Now I see that you have it, but without the little line under it I didn't notice. So ... for future reference, here it is with a little line under it. ;-) http://www.mibauctions.com

Well, that list of reflector patents started getting superlong, with lots of extra notes, because I never found THE patent I was looking for. The goal of my original search was to find the originator(s) of reflecting devices using marbles. However, I now realize I had a preconceived notion of what sort of device I wanted to see. I still haven't found a patent for such a device. Well, not a single patent. But I did remember seeing patent information on a reflector sold on ebay, so I checked that out and found three dates. It appears that multiple patents were involved. So far I have one match from above: May 28, 1930: Patent #1933633, Reflector (something about mounting reflectors, might not specify shape of reflector buttons) (awarded Nov. 7, 1933) .... oops, have to go, I'll finish this later. I don't know if this is a match for the 3rd patent, but it's cute: July 20, 1933: Patent #1946424, Direction Indicator (check out the picture of the signal) (awarded Feb. 6, 1934) (not totallly sure what the 3rd date on the reflector is) The June 18, 1929 patent might be tough to be sure about. It looks like an unusually large number of patents were awarded on this date. My experience isn't much so I don't know what's typical, but some of the patents awarded this day had been applied for in the 1830's. possibilities for the June 18, 1929 patent: Sept. 19, 1924: Patent #1717544, Vehicle Lamp Signal (bright idea of having headlights on both sides of the car instead of just in the middle, where you wouldn't be able to tell if an oncoming vehicle was a car or a motorcycle) Jan. 7, 1924: Patent #1717873, Journal Bearing (don't know what this is, and don't recognize it in the photo but ... I could easily have missed something, and maybe the item in the photo is only one part of a larger item)

Of course I have lots of patents bookmarked in different places to add as I come across them again. I intended to do something like this here, Legal Documents Pertaining To Marbles, but I'm starting over with this. The first two topics are going to be a little offbeat and might end up getting relegated to a post further down. They're first because they are two of my most recent searches so they're fresh on my mind. Marbles or other glass balls used in reflectors: Listed in order of filing date but that wasn't sufficient. In process of adding more date info. Note 1: list has "too many" non-spherical ones -- and even a non-glass example. might keep, might not. they show some of the "competition". Note 2: no idea if I've found the best, earliest solid glass sphere examples. There are so many different ways they might have been described. So far I've only searched at google patents. I don't know if they have all the patents. Note 3: there are later uses of glass spheres in reflector devices than what I've included. My search was mostly for info related to early automobile and highway reflectors. Note 4: reminder to look for "glass balls" or "spheres" or whatnot in different contexts after the reflector search is over. Note 5: it's possible that what I am looking for wouldn't have been called a "reflector". Maybe a "signal"? I need to approach this another way. Maybe read the patents. LOL. That way I can learn some more about the language, and maybe get some other leads. 1883: Patent #276428, Signal for Locomotive Head-Lights (this is a hollow glass ball filled with liquid) Nov. 18, 1912: Patent #1054274, Sign (the Burleigh patent referred to below, "lens" are used, not marbles, refers to the casing structure in patent #1,030,499) (awarded Feb. 25, 1913) 1925: Patent #1624300, Reflector-Jewel Mounting (not a marble, faceted) Aug. 18, 1927: Patent #1785422, Highway Signal (uses translucent "red glass balls") (awarded Dec. 16, 1930) April 16, 1930: Patent #1817646, Highway Sign ("spherical balls which may be of red glass") (awarded Aug. 4, 1931) Reissued: Re. 18438 (April 26, 1932) May 28, 1930: Patent #1933633, Reflector (something about mounting reflectors, might not specify shape of reflector buttons) (awarded Nov. 7, 1933) Oct. 8, 1930: Patent #1881588, Light Reflecting Unit (uses "a simple transparent glass sphere, as for example a glass marble") (awarded Oct. 11, 1932) 1930: Patent #1858382, Reflector Button and Holding Means Therefor (not a marble, something molded to a special shape) Mar 9, 1932: Patent #1955179, Illuminated Sign (uses buttons of some sort) (awarded Apr 17, 1934) July 30, 1932: Patent #2014558, Street Sign (This appears to be the patent "co-pending application" referred to in #1993595 below.) (awarded Sept. 17, 1935) Jan. 3, 1933: Patent #1993595, Light Reflecting Device (The language suggests this might be first item of this type to use ordinary toy marbles but see #1,881,588 above. #1,881,588 hadn't been awarded yet, so perhaps the inventor here was unaware the other had been filed. The inventor had a "co-pending application filed July 20, 1932". This patent refers to Burleigh Patent No. 1,054,274) (awarded March 5, 1935) 1933: Patent #1974575, Reflecting Sign (not yet sure what the reflecting "unit" is here) 1935: Patent #2095932, Reflector Button (specially shaped) June 24, 1935: Patent #2086314, Light Reflecting Device (awarded July 6, 1937) 1937: Patent #2177920, Reflector (Resin, not glass) 1938: Patent #2242382, Reflector Button ("hemispherical" "lens") 1939: Patent #2200339, Translucent Display (uses "spherical translucent inserts") 1940: Patent #2314566, Reflector 1941: Patent #2294930, Reflex Light Reflector (starting to get complicated) 1942: Patent #2345644, Light Reflecting Sign or Marker 1942: Patent #2367154, Reflector Element Marble shooters: many patents coming soon (edit: well, obviously they didn't come "soon" -- but there sure have been a lot of 'em patented) Others for later lists: Aug. 12, 1890: Design #20104, Shipping and Exhibiting Case