Steph

Good article. That sets me straight on the date of the Ninja Turtle too. :-)

You are welcome!

(And thanks for pointing me toward the examples ... they were great ones for making the point!)

Below is a comparison of two Marble King marbles. One is a vintage Watermelon which Bob Block recently sold at auction, perhaps made in the 1950's or 1960's. It would have been sold as a Rainbow, and is what is called a Patch & Ribbon style.

The second is a modern version of the Rainbow, I think from the 1990's or later.

Note: Some people call the modern marbles with this particular color combination Ninja Turtles. Some say they "have Watermelon colors". Some people outright call them Watermelons, which I believe to be a mistake.

Note #2: This is a simple enough subject, so I hope I have it right. If I don't, please let me know so that I don't perpetuate any misconceptions! Thanks!

Other examples might be found in other links threads (i.e., Peltier, Vitro, marbles from outside the U.S., original packaging).

See also Original Packaging

Cat's Eyes:

Various examples and discussions:

Calling All Cat's-Eyes

Japanese Cat's Eye?, USA cat's eye? (Includes a link to a very long thread full of cat's eye pictures at Marble Mental.)

Cat With Stripes

Maybe It's Because I Was A Boy When These Were Made,, but I truly believe these are some of the most beautiful. (cat's eye prices)

Do You Know? I Don't! (number of vanes in cats by different companies)

Bunch "o" Cats

Hybrids:

Antique Mall Find!!, WOO HOO!!

Fluorescent:

Florescent Catseyes

Peltier:

Weeekend Finds, How'de you make out this weekend

Vitro:

Vitro Caged Cats 7/8 & 5/8

Vitro Eight Fingers Vs Vitro/anacortes Colored Based Cage Cats

Anacortes Horseshoe Cat's Eye

One Incredible Vitro!, yep shamless plug too

Japanese Cat's Eye?, USA cat's eye?

Antique Mall Find!!, WOO HOO!!

Marble King:

Japanese Cat's Eye?, USA cat's eye?

St Mary's Cat's Eyes

MM: Question on Colors of St Marys Catseyes

Bogard:

Japanese Cat's Eye?, USA cat's eye? (Mountaineer Shooters package in post #6)

MM:ARTICLE: THOSE LOWLY BOGARD CAT'S EYES!

MM: Do you think this is Bogard?

Early Japanese:

A Old Dug Up Cats Eye Here In Australia, maybe rare? (not rare, but not a lot of pix of mibs like these, and these pix are nice )

Id Help, Questions, Just Because, & Shameless Plug, All in one thread!!! (I think the peach base on that six vane style means that it is an early Japanese cat's eye)

Japanese Cat's Eye?, USA cat's eye?

Special configurations and vane numbers:

8 Vane Cat's-eyes

8 Vane Cat

Who Made This Cat's Eye

Banana:

Is This A Pelt Or Master Cat Eye

Newer:

Vacor Cats, often look like Vitros

Rough draft

Other U.S. Marble Companies

Lower profile companies, or companies for which we don't have many links yet.

See also Original Packaging

Highly recommended: http://joemarbles.com/

Heaton Agate Company (1946-1971)

Mostly Pix - Heaton

MM: Heaton article by David Chamberlain

Pretty Aqua (sort of a follow-up discussion to the question in the following thread)

Giant Heaton Swirls?

Jackson Marble Company (1945-1946)

New Jackson Family Members!!!!

Mostly Pix - Playtime

Black & White Swirls (zebras)

Fluorescent Jackson Swirl

Mostly Pix - Jackson

MM: Jackson article by David Chamberlain

Playrite Marble and Novelty Company (1945-1947)

Cairo Novelty Company (1946-1950)

Id Marble Help Please (mountaineer)

Mostly Pix - Cairo Novelty

MM: Cairo Article by David Chamberlain

Cairo Novelty . . .

Davis Marble Works (1947-1948)

Alox Manufacturing Company (1919-1989)

Mostly Pix - Alox Agates

Alox Sunbursts?

Alox Oddity (shoe laces)

MM: Alox article by David Chamberlain

LOM: Today's History Lesson...Alox Toy Company..Long Read but informative!!!

Alox Shooters

Quick Alox Cat Eye Note

C. E. Bogard & Sons

Mostly Pix - Bogard

MM: Bogard article by David Chamberlain

Kokomo:

Aruba, Jamaica, Girl I Wanna Take Ya....

Any Collectors Of Kokomo Marbles?, And you thought only pelts were pearlized!

Kokomos Versus Peltier Rainbos

LOM: Pic's added how to repair Old Mesh bags?

Kokomo Examples

Original Kokomo Packaging?

Mid-Atlantic Glass (1987, in this incarnation, to 2002)

Mid Atlantic Marbles?

Marble From Orange County Showw W/ A Little History

Mid-atlantic 9-11 Marble Oddities On Ebay

LOM: Mid-Atlantic Marbles

LOM: Mid Atlantic marbles?

Vacor de Mexico (1930-present), AKA Fabricas Selectas USA

Marketed under the names Qualatex, Alamo, Mega Marbles, ...?

See also Original Packaging

Various examples and discussion:

Peltier Indian End Of Day Joseph's Miller Blanket....uhh

Vacor, Mega, House Of Marbles, ..., Pix of modern mibs

Help Please Cac Or Not? (Historical note in Post #13)

Peltier ???????????????????????? (Monet)

Superman Oddity (tantalizing group of Vacor patches)

Where Have All The Old 1" Megas Gone? (pics), Machine made shooters

MM: ID Help....new? Foreign?

Atmospheres:

Show Your Atmospheres

Contemporary Transitionals?

Sunsets:

Citrus Sunbursts

Id Help On These Shooter Patches Please

"Slags":

The Big Blue Marble

Vacor Cats, often look like Vitros

Galaxies:

Cat's Eyes:

Vacor Cats, often look like Vitros

Qualatex packaging or other information:

Not Quite Vintage Marbles

(pretty sure there's more info around here, hopefully just a matter of doing the search)

Fabricas Selectas packaging:

Walmart Fabricas Selectas Bags

The preview is very interesting. Especially the part about how you were forced to place various internal clues to your work, to stop people from passing it off as antique.

Most extremely rough draft! But I've been meaning to have a section like this, and Kevin's thread had slipped off the first page in the main forum, so here's the start.

Photography

Note: LOM in front of a link indicates that the linked page is hosted by LandOfMarbles.com. MM indicates a link at Marble Mental. KC is the Kansas City Marble Collectors Club. Akron is AkronMarbles.com. GA is Glass Addiction. WWW will direct you elsewhere on the world wide web.

Background & Lighting:

Photography Tips

GA: Marble photography?

Issues with focus:

Taking Pictures, what is the best background for good clean pictures? (place saver until I come across a better link :-)

Issues with color:

Light Blue Cac (another place saver until I come across a better link :-)

Getting to the core of the marble:

Underwater photos:

End Of Cane Cloud ?, End of Day Four Panel Onionskin? (See discussion starting at Post #6, and photos starting at Post #21.)

Mmmm Sparkly

Backlighting (or underlighting):

Vitro ...goldfish... Kewl Shooter, hook um"

Purple Ribbon Pelt

Decent Digital Camera That Is Inexpensive

Coudn't Stand It

Thanks Y'all For Missing These!, ebay mail call!

Not A Closet Marble

Camera models and attachments:

Decent Digital Camera That Is Inexpensive

Special effects:

More backlighting!

2 Uncommon Commons

Photo editing:

Other discussions and tips:

Digital Camera Question

GA: We can do better. (very cool! hope all the links still work when you see this!)

GA: Marble Photography Article (a link to a pdf version of an article by Brian Bowden, published in Flow Magazine)

.

These logo collectors sets are neat.

auction photos)

The seller had other examples of Jabo logo marbles, some in packaging and some loose. Fun. :-)

Every now and then I have a good idea. My google search for Ottawa sand came up with contact info for the U.S. Silica company. I asked them why a silica/sand sample might be orange. (Didn't mention that it came from the Akro Museum, just said I was talking about it with some marble collectors.) Mr. Weber in the sales department responded most promptly.

Stephanie,

The orange sand more than likely is a result some dyeing, but silica sand can have an orange appearance because of a high iron content. Most silica sand is naturally white, beige, brown or tan in color. Sand can be colored for craft application or for industrial applications such as synthetic turf (green putting greens)

Thanks,

Wayne J. Weber

U.S. Silica Company

Sales Coordinator

Neat!

The ottawa people are apparently mighty proud of that sand too. Here's a link mostly about Ottawa silica sand. And a little about silica sand from some other sites in Illinois and out.

It seems to be saying that pure silica will be colorless.

It also tells some other modern uses for silica.

Neat. Baumann said it was "the richest vein of silica sand in the United States", "99.9 percent pure silica". Wonder where it is used.

I'm looking at that super cool 1933 ad posted here, and once again I probably haven't registered everything on it, because once again I got sidetracked by something fun.

Here are the Steelies from that ad. The box says "Solid Steel Balls", so this would be ball bearings, right? Check out that size! 11/16". These would break some glass! [edit: the 1933 date has been questioned. Any help clarifying and/or verifying the date would be appreciated. In any case the actual date would be close to 1933. Possibly a little before.]

While I'm in the neighborhood, and in case anyone opened this thread in the hopes of finding some of the old hollow steelies with the x's in them, you can find some of those here, Steelies: Handmade Or Machine-made? Yes, it was a silly question! lol. But it's a great thread. Check out the patent John McCormick shows in Post #7 and Craig game set in Post #10.

Everytime I look at that 1933 ad posted I see something I missed the last time.

Albright's 2-color glass marbles were in there. $1 would get you 500 in a muslin bag. Yes, 5 for a penny.

(click to enlarge)

When I asked about Albright and glass marbles at LOM it was said most likely Albright was the distributor not the maker. Who might have made these two color marbles? The names mentioned as possibilities that time at LOM were Christensen, Akro, Alley, Master and Ravenswood.

I didn't know Brian was in on that. I do see his site cited several places in Baumann. Pretty cool.

Hey Brian, umm...I'll just come out and say it:

I think you guys should reprint your book.

Dave, which book is that?

Well, I'm back. That's pretty funny how Akro sued Peltier for patent infringement because of the similarity of the Miller machine to Horace Hill's patent, and won, but then had their victory yanked on appeal because Horace Hill shouldn't have been awarded the patent to begin with. Yea! (Hey, I like Akros, but still yea!)

It tells about this whole process in several of the marble books that are out there (to read), and the ifs, ands, and buts, and why the different companies eventually went out of business.

In other words - Read The Books. :closedeyes:

Cliff, I "read the books". the ones I have.

But sometimes things don't click until I've formulated a question to ask. Maybe a question about the books, maybe about something which accidentally leads me back to them. I have to feel involved. I try to read the text but I drift off and look at the pictures unless I have an active topic of interest to pursue. Like this has become.

Actually this particular topic has been great for helping me get back into Baumann's book. Not having registered the connection between MFC and Akro before, I couldn't understand why MFC and Akro were in one chapter with CAC and Pelt off in a separate chapter. That didn't fit with how I grouped their marbles in my own mind so confusion kept me from really focussing on either chapter.

Pretty much all of the confusion has been removed by the comments here, and I'm getting a lot out of my Baumann reading today.

I'm almost done with the MFC/Akro chapter and am about to start into the CAC/Peltier chapter. I'll probably be back with more questions soon.

The industry started in Ohio because the machinery and methods were invented by Ohio residents ...

I wondered if that was at least a part of it too. So it could have been a "Which came first, the glass or the glassmakers?" question. I was still fuzzy enough about the whole thing that I thought it safest to simply ask "Why?" and see what came of that. It's been interesting so far.

I went back to read some in Baumann. He doesn't state Akro's reason for the move as bluntly as that, but yeah, that Horace Hill was some piece of work.

That's irony. M. F. Christensen had to close down because of gas shortages but the dubious characters at Akro landed on their feet at a site rich in resources and were able to thrive.

Martin Christensen (and son) really treated people right. Thanks for the reminders to look at their story again.

Yes, neat link. Thanks Dave and Alan for all the great info.

I figured/hoped sand had something to do with it. Now you've crystalized it for me!

I like the idea of in-house control of the colors and quality in the good old days.

Fwiw, I'd heard the name Oriskany before (mentioned at your link, Dave). The (maybe) funny thing is that I read it today on an image I'd saved to my harddrive a few weeks ago. That image is what prompted my question. I wanted to know more about the significance of the jar of sand in a Marble Bert auction which had no takers. I would have bought it if I had any mad money, because having a jar of sand seemd like a cool idea to me! But I didn't, and apparently no one else got the historical significance of it, or valued it that much.

silica = sand?

Did the old marble companies process their own sand/silica?

I understand that natural gas is not so easy to come by anymore. Is the sand/silica dried up too? (no pun intended!)

Why did Ohio and West Virginia become centers for marble making? Any particular reason(s)?

Glass addiction is a good place to start. There are a huge number of artists not on GA though. It sort of depends whose work you prefer and want to collect. A good number of contemporary artists sell on Ebay as well. Personal preference in contemporaries vary widely - as do costs.

Is glass addiction the same as "the melting pot". Their subtitle says "where all glass addicts melt together". Have I found the place?

http://www.thegldg.com/forum/index.php

Okay ... I think I've answered my own question. ... no, not the same.

Glass Addiction

Update:

In case any one hadn't already guessed this from the more careful marbles labelling all around in 1933, here's the final outcome of that "pending" 1930 case against Gropper.

From the Annual Report of the Federal Trade Commission for the Fiscal Year Ended June 30 1931. (http://www.ftc.gov/os/annualreports/ar1931.pdf)

p. 56 indicates Gropper was found guilty of "Misbranding; false and misleading advertising." A cease and desist order was entered.

p. 157 has the details:

PROCEEDINGS DISPOSED OF IN FISCAL YEAR . . 157

Gropper, M. J., & Sons (Inc.). (Docket 1722.) Order entered November 17, 1930, requiring

respondent, engaged in the sale of marbles, to cease and desist from the use of the word "onyx" to

designate glass marbles, without the use of other words clearly showing that such marbles are not made

of onyx.

No. 6 Shooters. This style box can be seen in a 1954 Tiger-Eyes Ad.

(click to enlarge)

No. 1 "Shooters". No. 1 is typically 5/8" mibs. <-- edit: why did I say that? Is that right?

....