Steph

Glad you like your balloon. I stoled it for you from here. :Party_fest30: LOL you had the bag they came in?! and me trying to figure out whether they're Japanese or American! Yur killing me! LOL :rol: Awesome bag! "pincher" and "Wales" are both names which are used for this Japanese style. Wales was the brand name the multi-color ones were often sold under. Yours being a different brand ... That's kewl!!! When the name pincher is chosen instead of Wales, it often refers to the single colored game marbles, like most of the ones found in here: Check the links in the Japanese section and the Wales section on this page for some more examples, Original Packaging. Yah, I'm plugging one of my favorite pages o' links! lol Your new stripedy ones ... I guess you could be right about MK. Something seems different to me, not like MK I'm used to ... a different shade of aventurine ... but I don't know. Wouldja check those with a blacklight for me? 'kay ... bowing out now, 'coz I really don't know what your new bunch is and I'm hoping someone else will step in ...

That's what I was thinking. That swirling is an interesting TWIST though.

(click images to enlarge) How marbles shipped from Germany. From the seller's auction description: Here's one of the boxes from that crate: The description for that box: Another box from the crate had this mix of colors, including one fancy bennie: Here's another Bennie box which I'm moving down here from a previous post. I don't remember whether it was from this seller or not. I like the box because of the sticker, which says Agate-Marbles, Imitation. That was a name bennies were sold under. It also says there are 500 pieces in here, instead of the 100 I think there are actually, but maybe we can ignore that. (actually I've seen more than one box with this sticker error, fwiw)

Well, Happy Anniversary Bo and Judy!

I don't know how to date the box. Al might be able to help with that. My very vague guess would be the 1950's because of the plastic cups and the Japanese marbles. Here are SOME of the different types of marbles which have been found in Pressman packaging: Mostly Pix - Pressman. Their Japanese cat's eyes in Post #5 look like the early cats, which I think were from the 1950's. But that's not all the Pressman Japanese packaging types there were. Chuck (aka Chuck Jr. aka Chucks_mibs) has/had a bag with a set of Japanese pinchers in it. Those were used for Chinese Checkers ... wonder if that could have been what was in your bag .....

Aren't ya'll cute! What do the opposite ends of the patches look like? First pic is one end. 2nd pic is close to the first pic but three of the mibs are rotated slightly? (am I seeing that right?)

I've seen the solid aventurine swirl attributed to Champ. Bo, could you take some pix of the seams/poles/cutlines of your "clear base /green aventurine marbles"? I'd personally prefer flash because I think that would let me better see the detail I'm hoping to see. I'll go ahead and give you an idea of what I'm wanting to see and why. Aventurine patches have been an issue on three other boards in the last month. Paula (marblemover) posted this pic: Here's her explanation of what's what:

Neato box. Why Ravenswood on the swirl? Would you mind hitting it with a blacklight ... er, I mean shining a blacklight on it ....

That's gorgeous. I tried to find the description in the gallery ... couldn't ... care to share again? p.s. Welcome! -steph

Al said one of his pix was described as containing peewees. Geometry corroborated that. The size is close. The layout is not quite the same. The Rosenthal compartments have a border around them. Your compartments are given more of the box. I scaled yours so that your 7" measurement for the base could be compared more accurately to the seller's 7.5" measurement for the box. The difference in the size of the compartments is significant. If your box should actually be scaled up some more to be closer in size to the seller's, it makes your compartments even larger in comparison.

The definition usually circulated of prize names is "corkscrews with two opaque colors". Pretty sure that's too restrictive. Different degrees of transparency and maybe translucency occurred in the style Akro called prize name, right? Photos of boxes make it seem that way to me so this sounds like a rhetorical question, but I've mistaken opaque Akro glass for transparent before, based on strange blending, so ... seems like a good thing to get a confirmation for since I've never seen the boxes in person. And what were the original prize name colors? The 1931 ad in AMMM where it says "The Akro Agate Line Is Complete" says they have "five different combinations of two-color stripings: blue with maroon; green with orange; cream with red; black with yellow; orange-yellow with blue". But the two pix I've seen which had the presumably 1929 or 1930 prize name contest coupons in the box had a wider assortment than that. Ten kinds in each box, yet not quite the same as each other, and not all five of the combos listed in the ad. These are the two boxes I saw with the coupons accompanying them: Any one with more info or strong opinions on what the earliest varieties were?

lol. thanks for clearing that up Galen. I assumed the 7" was for the lid. The adjusted figure still puts the red and green estimate a litttle under 5/8" but it's close. btw, I picked the 3 red and green on the left end because they lined up most neatly in their compartment. Dani, that's very interesting about the peewees not being a mass production item for Akro. Still a puzzler since they're not generally thought to be a Master item either. Maybe Master was able to tweak their 00's a little lower for a good customer like Rosenthal.

Zora, my guess is that you have a double ingot Akro. I had one which I carried around for a couple of years thinking it was a Pelt NLR, until finally I was determined to figure out the seams and found it had three. That's when I began to suspect something different was going on.

For fun, and to check my method, I used the 7" figure to estimate the size of Galen's mibs. Without worrying about error estimates ... for example taking Galen's 7" measurement as exactly 7" (not, say, 7.2") and not worrying too much about the angling of the box or anything like that, I got 19/32" for the red and green swirls. Not too bad, I guess.

That makes tons of sense. I was getting used to the idea of Rosenthal jobbering Masters, wondered if/why they might do Akros too. I guess there could be a lot of reasons. But one logical one suddenly jumps out. The seller didn't give the marble size but did state that the box was 7.5" square. From that, using various assumptions about possible sources of error, I get estimates of between .49 and .52 inches on the marbles. Makes total sense that if Rosenthal needed smaller marbles, they'd turn to a non-Master source. thanks!

Rosenthal Jumpo Marblo game box:

That's probably better than the name I thought of. ... strawberry chiffon LOL

Yesterday I noticed that my copy of the magazine begins with page 3. I started to wonder if the announcement was on page 1 or 2. But now I have questioned multiple eBay sellers of Boys Life magazines about whether their issues have a page 1, and so far none do. It appears that the cover was considered page 1. So my copy seems to be intact. I've been through the mag three times now, and still see nothing from Akro! If it's there, I must be looking right past it.

Yes, that's what I heard. But there's the matter of prizes promised. I hoped that even if no new name were adopted, the prizes were given out. And the winner's names announced. Good faith, good PR, and all that. No? I was curious to see if the winning suggestions would be announced also, but I at least expected the prizes to be awarded. Plus, Al once said he thought the announcement had been made, since the June 1930 Boys Life was on his list of magazines with marble references. IIRC.

Pelt opaques: This box says blue. (source) This one says green. (source) That happens a lot with Akro boxes also. Where one color will be stated on the outside but there will be a mix inside.

The winners for the Akro prize name contest were to be announced in the June 1930 issue of Boys Life. Anyone know if the announcement was made? and if so, what page number?

Wonderful info. :cool sign: That leaves a loose end of Akro comparing their glassies to brandies (and wine agates) but it takes care of the big stuff! Any idea what handmade clearies were sold as?

I echo your thoughts. I posted a link to this thread at Glass Addiction. I've been wanting to post the link to their comments. Here's that thread.

Akro Prize Name box with contest coupons. (click to enlarge) (source) Some text from the enclosure introducing the prize names and explaining the contest: Then came the contest rules. There were to be five prizes, ranging from $10 to $100. The deadline for entries was Midnight, May 1, 1930. And winners were to be announced in the June issue of Boys' Life.

You know we always say it, but you really DO make me wish I was there!