Steph

Reading the Marble Museum's Vitro book I'm seeing some dates which might be helpful to have in a ready reference format. So here goes. I may update it as I find out more. *** The Vitro-Agate Company, 1932 - 1969 *** Vienna, WV -- 1932 (mailing address was in Parkersburg even while the plant was in Vienna) 1930's: Clear-Lite Du-Lite Tri-Lite The original All-Reds were Tri-Lites. Packaged in mesh bags, and in cartons. Bags were labelled Shooters, Spinners, Buddies, Sunny Boy and Seniors. There is also a bag labelled Pee-Wees from that era. Collectors names for different varieties of Tri-Lite include: Helmet, Elite, Superior, Aquamarine, Buttermilk, ... (to be continued?) In the 1940's, during WWII, the following were introduced. Conquerors Victory Agates Parkersburg, WV -- 1945 1951: Tiger-Eyes were introduced 1952: Aqua Jewels, said to be Vitro's "most successful line of marbles". Described by Henry Fisher in 1967 as "hotter'n heck, has been for many years". First made in Gold, Crystal, Blue, Green and Azure. Ruby would come later, in 1958. It wasn't initially considered practical because of the high price and general shortage of selenium. It is noted that Clearies were previously sold under the names Tri-Clear and Marine Gems. The name Marine Gems was trademarked by Vitro in 1941. 1954: Cat's eyes were introduced 1957: Do not know yet when they were introduced. However, Blackies and Whities were available for sale in this year. 1958: The Ruby Red clearie was introduced. 1958 or later: The "fingers" marbles were made after the Ruby Red clearie, and they were the precursor of the caged style cat's eye. 1959: The more familiar All-Red was introduced. First the "black line" all-reds. I don't yet know how long it was before the black line was dropped. 1964: Yellow Jackets were introduced. (Thanks to George Sourlis for this updated information.) 1965: Blackies and Yellow Jackets were still being advertised. (Thanks to Al for this information.) *** Acquired by Gladding-Kalamazoo Sled and Toy, Inc., a WV corporation, 1969 *** *** Name changed to Gladding-Vitro Agate Company *** Owner of record is Gladding, a NY company, 1971 1981: Manager is John Masters *** Acquired by Paris Manufacturing Corporation of South Paris, Maine, 1982 to 1985, or to 1987? *** *** Name changed back to Vitro Agate *** *** Purchased by the Viking Rope Company, 1987 to 1988 *** *** Plant relocated to Anacortes, WA, home of Viking Rope, 1989 *** *** Purchased by Jabo, Inc., 1992 to 1993 *** *** Machines and old stock moved to the Ohio River, 1993 *** (plant is in Reno, OH, mailing address is or has been in Parkersburg, WV) Sounds like Jabo might not have purchased Vitro's old stock after all. See comments below. Not sure at this time where I heard that they had. Primary source: The Vitro-Agate Company, The Marble Museum's Guide to the Glass-Agate Company, 2005, by Chris Cooper and Michael Johnson Additional information from: American Machine-Made Marbles, 2006, by Dean Six, Susie Metzler, and Michael Johnson

LOL @ the television mention in the headline. I bet if the article had been written in 1965, they wouldn't have sounded as optimistic that mibs would survive TV. Yup, miggles popping up everywhere! LOL True, the descriptions on the left don't seem to match up exactly with the marbles in the rows. And I imagine that some people would disagree with some of the claims. Like the row labeled peppermint stripes being "semi-mechanically made"? And those onionskins/Joe's coats in the 3rd row being American made ... and the clays being preferred to those? There are some issues there. But as you say this is a 1955 perspective. The average man on the street would have known a lot about marbles, at least the ones he played with. The author or illustrator were definitely giving us insight into the names which were used back then. They might not know how Germans made marbles 75 years earlier, but they would know recognize a lot of marble types on sight, whatever name they used in that period. And these marbles are from the collections of Berry Pink and Sellers Peltier?!! Before they started making cat's eyes themselves? Yeah ... if either of them called an auger-y marble a cat's eye in 1955 ... I find that very interesting. They're calling them scrap glass marbles. And then near the bottom there are some more scrap glass marbles? I think the WWI statement is simply an error. They surely meant WWII, because obviously the writer considered Peltier's marbles and the "moonstones" to be beautiful, and he obviously knew those were made after WWI. I know of companies using scrap glass, but I've only ever heard of it being used for traditional marbles such as WV swirls. This is the first I've I heard of a "cat's eye" version or of marbles such as those on the left of that other row. Hmm, the big marble in that row looks like a marble which was identified as Alox in Amer. Mach.-Made Marbles, and Alox did use scrap glass. This is provocative since Alox marbles are still somewhat of a mystery. What do you think about the name "moonstones"? It sounds like a name used in the 1950's which hasn't survived to the present. And it looks like some of those marbles in that row might be translucent Akro corks. ??? One final LOL @ clearies being called a fad. We recently discussed a highly flawed article which can be found on the net which spoke of clearies as being "prized by collectors". Maybe it was based on info from the 1940's or early 50's.

I want to be completely fair. I don't want to run any risk of telling someone they don't have what they think they have and thus interfering with legitimate sales if I am wrong. I am about as certain as I can be, and I want the facts to be on the record so that anyone who is in doubt can also be clear on the matter. My real question here comes from the fact that these bags contain swirls. AMMM notes this as fantasy packaging but says they contain "recent Marble King". So I simply want to nail down the facts about which variations might be out there. I want to document it. For the good of anyone who might be searching for helpful information on this in the future. Whether or not I contact this particular seller. I want to be fair.

Just want to get this 100% straight, and on the record ... and want confirmation before I contact the seller and tell them they're mistaken about it being vintage. ALL the Alox armed forces packaging is fantasy? Obviously the ones with modern Marble Kings are. Who would you say made the mibs in here? Champion?

Something new starting at Glass Addiction. Who knows how long it will last or where it will go. A thread about making contemporary marbles. Some pre-recorded videos and some live feeds. Marble Videos and Live Feeds - Add Yours HERE!!

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.