Steph

1915 - Three more early ones, boxes patented July 13, 1915 The patent: . . Also see Post #13 here, which has a Wolverine Dumping Sandy and the Akro carton which came with it:

So here is a comparison of some the "Akro" items sold in the past few months by one particular seller. I'm not an expert on Akro packaging. The comments in this post and on the pix are only my reflections. I made the comparisons because it seems that each is "wrong" in its own special way. The two single marble boxes which look most similar look a little different inside. Yet as different as they look from each other they have similarities between themselves, which don't look like any akro packaging I've seen anywhere else. If someone knows of confirmed akro examples with this sort of stamping, or those dividers, or that thick paper, I would love to hear about them. Or about confirmed vintage boxes which have "aged" in that way. Some of these look shellacked. (click to enlarge) Singles: The blue slag is about 3/4". That will give you an idea of how wide its box is. Four other boxes -- warning: this image is large, about 2000+ pixels wide The same 4 boxes, smaller version This post is about these boxes. Not that seller. These boxes are now in circulation and more might be on their way. At least one of them was being reauctioned by someone recently -- the one pictured with the little blue carton. I think it was listed by someone in England. We know it was the same box because he used some of the same photos for his listing, including the photo with the blue carton. So I think it would be good to have them on the record, and well, if they are actually close to legitimate in any way that would be interesting to hear. Where would one get a stamp like that to use on the boxes? The top one here is from an Imperial box. That's the closest example I know to the version stamped on those boxes up there and on the cloth in the sample box currently on ebay.

1914, Akro made a very fast move to Clarksburg, WV and quickly went into marble production. Possibly the first Clarksburg ad, from a December 1914 Playthings Magazine: 2015 edit to add Red Striped Carnelian box, courtesy of Jeff Lewis: Old rambling continues here --> Odd thing -- the white onyx wasn't in the MFC line at the time. It is odd because Akro was using MFC glass formulas on machines designed by Martin Christensen. Horace Hill had modified the machines at Akro just enough to convince the patent office to award him a new patent. However, the machines were so very similar that that it was later decided that the patent should not have been granted. (if I understand correctly) Hill's version of the machine never worked very well -- it had a high error rate. In any case, Akro's early marbles were basically MFC's made at a different location and it hardly seems possible to me that Hill would have had the time, much less the expertise, to roll out a new marble style. The golden yellow is a bit of a puzzle since it seems to have been a low production item for MFC, perhaps even experimental. However the White Onyx was one of their regular production items and a specific date is known for its introduction -- Sept. 12, 1915 -- nine months after Akro first advertised it. I need clarification on whether Sept. 12 is when it went into production or was announced, or what. Another ad for the keystone box, from about 1916 It looks like the publication is called "Something To Do". Al's bibliography mentions an ad in a Sept. 1915 Something To Do, but this page shows a 1916 magazine. This time the box is said to contain five different colors of striped onyx, so apparently at least one additional color has been introduced:

1911 - 1914, the Akron era. Akro started by jobbering MFCs. The earliest known Akro box, the mailer the box came in, plus an early Akro ad. More/larger views: https://i.imgur.com/rImKLBb.jpg https://i.imgur.com/FRnoL6D.jpg Not sure the source of the above ad. Basically the same ad could be found in different publications. Here's a series of ads George Sourlis sent dated from 1911 to 1915. (No similar one found for 1914 yet.)

pretty much for me the question would be how to open it ... and would I have the patience to wait until I consulted with an expert or just go for it myself

Bingo!

I could try to pretend this is on topic. lol. Could mention that marbles were made near here. Maybe not during the time the pic was taken but not too long before. But I won't fake it! :icon_lmao: This just happens to be one of my favorite finds! :Cool_049: It was in a vintage storage case for color slides. At an antique shop a few blocks from me. I went there a lot, and looked at it several times before I bought it. Only $15 bux. Can't believe I thought so hard about whether I would buy it, but I did. I had a use for it. Some old family slides which were loose in a box ... and are still. The saleslady offered to dump the slides which were already in it. No ulterior motives -- she just wanted to make it easy on me -- they would end up in her waste basket instead of mine. Who needed someone else's old family photos of weddings, pony rides and picnics from the 50's and 60's? That sort of thing. But I said, nah, I'd take 'em home. Might be something interesting. I sold this first slide for $75. Anyone recognize the buildings? It was the one in the distance which was the draw. Might've been able to get more for this one and others taken that day if I'd had a clue what kind of market there was for them and built up some awareness that they were on the market instead of starting with the best ones first. But $75 was alright! Someone who took the $20 to $30 buy-it-now on one of the related photos helped me learn more about all of them. (click to enlarge)

1930's

A folded pricelist from Akro, found with a 1926 letter also from Akro. The pricelist is sealed with a 1 1/2 cent Warren Harding stamp. (click to enlarge) The letter advertising Cornelians, already opened:

real marbles? meaning vintage? or? are they shooters?

I can't remember if I've ever seen an American-made with a real reverse 9. The last time I remember the subject coming up I think all the possible examples turned out to be a regular 9 more or less but the ribbon was so tall that we could see it from the other side and so it looked reversed. Or maybe some other sort of oddness but I think they didn't really look like true reverse 9's on closer examination. A true reverse 9 would be be very rare anyway, right?

A couple of old threads which have a lot of missing pictures and broken links, but leaving the links for now: Mostly Pix - Akro Links: Original Packaging Currently working in restoring the photos in this thread. -- 9/22/2019

I'll ask again, but I'm pretty sure that's all the seller knew. He goes to China periodically and buys them from a digger. There are two things I find interesting about these 'transitionals' in comparison with the handmades and in comparison with slag-type marbles from other sources. One is that I think I might be seeing a continuum of pontil types, possibly linking the transitionals with the frit marbles, as if the same shearing tool may have been used on both types, but maybe under different conditions. more hastily on the transitionals? different person? different year? A completely different thing which I would still find curious even if I'm wrong about the pontils: The reverse 9s. I don't pay the best attention to threads about slag-type marbles since I haven't made a lot of connection with them yet, but I seem to remember that it's very rare to have the tail wrapping in the direction it does on these. So if my recollection is correct, I wonder if these are signs of a different marble making tradition.

Intriguing ad for an American publication to run ... From a 1927 Playthings. I assume machine made because it says patented and because of the price. (click to enlarge)

oops, sorry about that. the other thread had a lot of lookers but no takers. I wasn't sure the shanghai part would be seen if I just added it to the other thread. I'm asking on someone else's behalf so I wanted to make sure it got seen. I'm very intrigued by the reverse twists on the 'transitionals'. It's far from typical if I understand correctly.

they came from a dump site in Shanghai.

Okay, let's try it a different way What do you think about these being found together in a dumpsite in Shanghai?

I shall have to stop looking at the pontils for awhile. I notice something new about them each time I look. I'll just note this last observation and then wait to hear what anyone else has to say. Here it is: The green one might have more similarity with the others than at first it seemed. It appears to also have a sort of 2nd mark. The amber's 2nd mark in the middle seemed almost like a 2nd shear perpendicular to the first, but that was too weird a thought to be able to get a handle on. But it seems worth commenting on now because the green's "sort of 2nd mark" is also sort of perpendicular. It is two indentations across the line from each other..

These are 1/2" to 21/32", dug from the same dumpsite. They had larger kin, including confettis which were at least 1 and 1/8". The one with blue spots has externally applied drizzle -- dark olive -- which dips into the blue in places + one interesting pinkish red striped rectangular patch. I think the rectangle is the same material as one the bits of 'frit' in the confetti. That's what I tried to show in the first pic. Is frit the right word? That piece in the confetti is not just a simple bit of colored glass. To me it looks like fine pink stripes maybe around a slender white rod. Under a loupe I see that the pink in the patch is transparent. Hard to tell otherwise. The guy who sold them had other opaques with drizzle. Beautiful orange thin (really thin) swirl....or yellow.......or blue..........that did not swirl around the entire marble, just the upper part. Let's see, the ones which might be called transitionals look familiar in a way, and different too, but maybe that's just because I don't have much experience with them. The two smallest look like they have reverse 9's. Maybe the middle sized one also, but it's a little more globby and harder to trace. The amber has more of a ying yang looking thing where I'd expect the 9. To my untrained eye they appear to have been snipped off of punties. The green one looks the most cleanly snipped. The others look like there may have been a little bit of snapping along with the snipping. Each seems to have at least remnants of longish indented lines like the green but also a wider spot in the middle which looks like the glass might have been colder when that mark was made. Looking at them all again, I think the pontils on those three look more like the pontil on the confetti than the one on the green. (edit: I wouldn't have thought of the green's shear mark as being much like the confetti's pontil, but with the others in between, I could see them as being on opposite ends of range of variation) The mib with sprinkling of blue on one side and green on the other also had a sprinkling of pink or red once upon a time. But the frit has fallen out. It didn't come through clearly but that's what I tried to show in this next pic. This mib has the softest looking pontil. Maybe like the others and maybe a little something done to it to smooth it out. ?

yeah, terry, that would be a fun way to spend a month

Most people are. :Happy_050:

can't get enough!

I think this is most of an article on MFC which appeared in a Canadian trade journal, Bookseller and Stationer. Volume 26, which I think was from 1910. Google Books only wanted to give me one "snippet" but I tickled it until it gave me three. A complete copy of the page should be available from Princeton by interlibrary loan through your local library. (source) For fun, here is a 1900 edition. It does have a couple of references to marbles. Nothing fancy. For more fun, completely unrelated to Bookseller and Stationer or MFC or Canada, but I found it when trying to get the link for this post ;-) Songsheets published by a marble warehouse

My screen is 1280 x 1024