Steph

The Bogard article at Marble Mental was about a sampling which David Chamberlain took from cat's eye packages. The bananas Ron mentioned would be something else entirely. He said he didn't think they ever even made it to market.

Now how about those bananas? I never even heard of any from Bogard. Just pelt and master and maybe foreign.

Not obvious, lol. But I saw enough to hope! They're "common", but they're nice commons. Nice vintage American stock. :-) Classics.

I thought you might have some of those. When they have more than one color in the same vane they're called hybrids. (by most of us, I think) Some people object to the use of the word "hybrid" though, because to them the term implies something more accidental. For example, at the end of a run of green marbles, and the beginning of a run of blue marbles, there might be some stripey blues and greens as the last of the green glass is flushed out. Two-color (and sometimes more color) Vitro and Marble King cats appear consistently enough to make them seem to have been intentionally made that way.

Felicia, before the bananas start marching out, here's a quick pic with some more "common" cat's eyes. I think these are mostly Vitro. There are several of the chubby-vaned kind, as well as some variations on the classic cage style. Some of them have a little two-color "hybrid" action going on. Probably not enough to make them valuable but a little bit of extra color for accent. The green ones have aventurine. I don't see any with only 4 chubby vanes in this box. I must have put those somewhere else. Yeah, I remember now. Their coloring didn't blend all that well with these, so I decided they might be from a different maker, probably marble king. I'm guessing the chubby vaned ones are from the 60's. For the record, some of the chubby vanes meet in the middle. Some of them have a little separation, but not enough to tempt me to call them cage style cats. (Someone recently asked somewhere about whether it was the separation which made the difference between cage style and not. I don't remember who, where or how recently. lol)

From M.F. Christensen and the Perfect Glass Ball Machine: America's First Machine-Made Glass Toy Marble Factory, by Michael C. Cohill (by way of hip Lloyd Huffer)

okay. I think I have the tiger eyes figured out. Many thanks!

Does an all-red have a half and half white ribbon in the middle? p.s. I hear both of ya'll. Very persuasive testimonials for the WVMCC.

Thank you very much. What is a "half and half" ribbon? I think I get it but I would like to confirm, esp. in the case of the Type 4 Tiger Eye. When there's a clear base, the half and half ribbon would be brushed on the surface, in two pieces, to form one equatorial ribbon. Correct? In the Type 4 case, is there an additional white ribbon brushed onto the opaque white base?

What are the four types? I've seen more about this somewhere, but I'm not finding much now. Here's one of the first places I think I saw two-color tiger eyes id-ed, WHERE WERE THE VITRO COLLECTORS??

Thanks Al. Why would they do that?

Shifting back to American makers now, here's my favorite link to show anyone about Vitro cat's eyes, Anacortes Horseshoe Cat's Eye. In that thread I asked specifically about horseshoe style cat's eyes, which are a special variation for which the Vitro plant in Anacortes, WA became famous. However, the horseshoe style was most definitely not the only cat's eye the Anacortes plant produced. There are tons of great pictures in the thread, both horseshoes and others. Some of the non-horseshoes are "cage-style" cat's eyes, with slender wiggly vanes. Some look like sort of a mix of cage-style and blade-style (imho). (p.s., it case it's not obvious, it turns out that the cat eye I was asking about was not a Vitro. I still don't know what it is, but I'm guessing Asian.) The Anacortes plant was in operation from 1989 to 1992, but Vitro was making cat's eyes for a long time before that. There are some cage style cats prominently featured in this super rare Gladding Vitro box from the 1970's. (These pix are from an old thread here. I do not know who originally posted them. ?? If I remember correctly it was said that only about 200 of these boxes were made, possibly distributed to store managers?) Vitro started making chubby vaned cat's eyes in the 1950's. I'm not sure when they changed to cage style.

Quick answer: Could be. Doesn't have to be. The style was carried on by other Asian manufacturers. And I think by manufacturers in other countries. My general understanding of the general trend is that the colors started out brightest and the bases clearest in Japan. Then the colors became duller and the bases took on dingy tints as time went by. But now there are some crystal clear and super pretty ones from Vacor in Mexico. unless I'm mistaken! lol

With the six vane, three color cat's eyes, there are actually three variations that I know of. The common ones have the vanes in pairs as Al said: e.g., 2 blue, 2 red, 2 yellow. Then there's a one-way cross-thru. With the one-way cross-thru, one vane pair is usually white. That's the pair which usually crosses through. You might have 2 blue, 1 white, 2 red, 1 white. If the cross-thru vane is something other than white, that is special. Then comes the three-way cross-thru which Jane shows, and Al describes. The one-ways are hard to find but not as rare as the three-ways. This really needs pictures, but I'm pooped out with pix. [This space reserved for pix when I find 'em, unless someone else bails us out first. ] .

Wow Jane. They're all great. And that purple shooter choked me up a bit. Felicia, Jane's "Japan 3 way cross thru 6 vane cats" are some of the rarest early Japanese cats. Some of the most special of the special vane arrangements.

LOL. That's actually what prompted this thread. I saw the picture and went into a tailspin. When I read the description I saw where Alan said the bag contained all-reds ... so he at least acknowledged that something was weird ... but it was too late. All my sleeping Vitro questions came bubbling up to the surface, and voila! this thread. Now, you know I will not be able to pass up posting that picture. Should I do it now or later? Oh heck, here it is. P.s., for the record, Alan dates the bag as late 1950s-early 1960s. It has the seam down the middle on the other side.

Part of the reason for my confusion about Tiger Eyes: This picture was previously posted by Al but I'm not sure where. Are some of those just two colors? I mean, white plus one other color? Would the ones with a different color patch on either end and white in the middle match the ones in either Column #2 or Column #6 of Jane's board?

Oh boy!!!

Here's one more Marble King example before I stand out of the way and wait for the Vitro photographs. They're called St. Mary's cat's eyes. They were made at the original Marble King factory in St. Mary's, WV. I think the dates one these are roughly 1955 to 1958. There were other, one-color cat's eyes made in St. Mary's too, but I wouldn't be able to tell them apart from other Marble King cat's eyes. The ones we call St. Mary's are special because their vanes have two colors (alternating, like red-blue-red-blue), or four different colors with a different color for each of the four vanes. Funny thing about these, they came from a Tournament Assortment bag, so you might think they'd be an average mix, with mostly the most common ones, but I think these are some of the more rare colors. I'm pretty sure the most common color combo is blue/yellow, but none of those here.

Here are some modern Marble King cat's eyes. American-made. After 1990. Mine. Yes folks, I have actually taken a picture of my own marbles. These are some Marble King cat's eyes which could be as old as the 1970's. Not a very big picture. Maybe someone else has a better one. The vane structure is roughly the same as my more modern ones, but as you can see some of the vanes are translucent. A little closer view of another blister pack, partially filled with cats: So far the American-made marbles I've been showing have vane shapes fairly close to some foreign styles. Some of the American-made vanes have been wavier than a lot of foreign cat's eye vanes tend to be, but they've still been more or less wide and flat. There are more distinctive American-made cat's eye styles. Marble King and Vitro both made cat's eyes with very chubby vanes. And Vitro is famous for its cage style cat's eyes with very slender vanes. Maybe someone else will post some pix of those. They can be very photogenic.

More American-made cat's eyes. These are from C. E. Bogard & Sons. A "Mountaineer Shooters" package. Photos courtesy of Nancy (pollyestr2). I'm pretty sure they're standard size even though they say "shooters". :-) p.s., here's a link to David Chamberlain's Bogard article at Marble Mental, ARTICLE: THOSE LOWLY BOGARD CAT'S EYES!

And now here some Heaton brand cat's eyes. Heaton is an American company. IMHO these look quite close to Japanese style. Some American made ones have much different looking vanes. Here are some more Heatons, with a more wavy and imho American-looking vane. [edit: I believe these were said to have been dug at the Heaton site, but later posts said that black cats would likely have been Bogard. Bogard bought Heaton if I recall correctly.]

Thanks! We don't feel so alone now. lol And thanks for clarifying about the clear base. Does the size matter for the Pastel ID?

Pretty marbles, Dutch. I didn't know that name. Jane, very nice set up. The bottom half of column #2 is related to some of my puzzlement. Three years ago when selling marbles like those on eBay I also called them all-reds without red and assumed they were "newer" (whatever "newer" might mean). But lately I think I've been seeing them called Tiger Eyes. But maybe I'm confusing those with the similarly colored ones in column #6. Whichever might be the case, I think _some_ of them from column #6 or the bottom half of column #2 might be older. No? Not arguing exactly ... or not with you ... just transcribing the debate being held by some of the voices in my head.

Here are some earlier Japanese cat's eyes ... distributed in little bitty boxes. Why? I don't know. Cereal premiums? Other premiums? Dimestore toys? Anyone? These are from Marblealan auctions. The first set is from one little box. The 2nd set are the marbles from 2 boxes holding 2 marbles each. That doesn't quite capture the look I was in search of when I went browsing through my hard drive. It's close enough for a good idea but there's another box I remember from somewhere showing the colors and vane quality which I like best. I'll add it to this post if/whenever I find it. This still isn't the package I was looking for. (I'm pretty sure it'll be a big box and the vanes will be more substantial ....) . But I think this bag is cute. It's "Hygienically Packaged". Still don't have the box ... but this is getting close to the look I like. I know I'm being silly. Heck you may not see the slightest bit of difference between this bag and the last one, lol, but to me the base looks cleaner, some of the colors are brighter, and the vanes are more solid. I like the translucent vanes too but I like the solid ones best. Someone who doesn't care at all about cat's eyes will throw them all away. But for me some of them stand out. Especially the turquoise ... love the turquoise! lol) No more from me of this type unless/until I find that box. You get the idea! The next Japanese ones I'd hunt up pix for are the earliest 6-vane, 3-color ones. Again, the difference between the earlier ones and some of the later ones is the tendency for the earliest ones to have brighter colors and nicer base glass than the later ones. Also, some of the earliest 3-color Japanese cat's eyes had special arrangements of the colors. But that's a subject for a separate post.