Steph

Of course you meant that :-) Was this tongue in cheek?

1924 (click to enlarge)

Not all CAC white lights up. The white in my guinea cullet doesn't. Kokoken said about 50/50 for both bloodies and guineas.

Any of ya'll seen these before? This is from the Aug. 1936 popular science. It has small "reflector buttons". "Reflector button" seems to be the industry's name for the individual mounted reflecting units like those in signs and auto reflectors. So some reflecttor buttons had marbles. But in this case the patent called for something more like "gems". Red ones.

Quite an assemblage! Thanks for taking time out to post.

The bottom never looked particularly Akro to me but it's starting to look more so. With that clear, slightly bubbly base, and light wispiness, the top does look Akro. The bottom also seems to have the wispiness. The main thing which puzzles me is that pale orange. That's a weird color. (If it's actually pale yellow, that would be more in my realm of experience. is it pale yellow?) 'Course I'd feel better all around if I had a good handle on both ends of the ribbons on both of the mibs. I guess I'm seeing one end on each? but not clearly. Would be looking for hints of corky structure.

Would larger ones have more screen marks than smaller? From the weight? That one has so many interesting spots we could analyze. This looks like a plug. At more than 1 and 1/2", would this one actually have been hollow?

p.s. it seems quite possible that the process might have been mechanized at some point. And quite possible that it never was. Rounding machinery was invented long before bennies stopped being made. iiuc. But would it have been employed by bennie making concerns? I dunno. It would have meant modernization of time-tested methods/equipment during hard economic times, so?

I actually have quite a bit of info from the 1800's about marble making in that century, and about the marble makers. Some would be boring to most (do you want to know how much they were paid, and how many were employed in 1850, and how that compared to the numbers in 1880?). Some would be false I think (unless chinas did really come from china). Some might give some insight, if only tangentially. I'm not sure whether this is a guess or a memory: the clay for the bennies may have been cut into cubes, as stone agates also were of course, prior to rounding into spheres. That would have given more or less uniform sizes, and you could see how that might lead to the occasional shear mark. But if they were rolled into tubes (or molded into tubes) and then cut that would have made the hand-rounding stage easier. And that would explain antipodal shear marks.

yeah, what they said. :Party_fest33:

the mover of marbles!

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!