Steph

A couple more threads to look at: http://marbleconnection.com/topic/21874-lawrence-glass-novelty-company-from-the-ground/ http://marbleconnection.com/topic/13019-alleys-blue-skies-and-blush-lines/ http://marbleconnection.com/topic/22071-st-marys-alleys/ Most of these pix are from auctions. I try to keep track of sellers and other sources now, but when I started this thread I didn't have all the names stored, so I may still be missing some IDs. From past Rinesmarbles auctions, these are Alleys dug at Pennsboro, placing their date of origin around 1934-1937. Misshapen ones, showing a couple of interesting color combos: I'm fairly sure these were also said to have been dug at Pennsboro: Note: There are other pix in the links here, Compilation: Original Packaging.

When I saw Ron's pix in the links in Post #5, I was confused about a couple of things! For one, I saw boxes that said Cloudy but I didn't see any Cloudies. Why? It turns out all of Ron's stock boxes said Cloudy on the end, but they had other things stamped on the top. The thing which made me do a major double take though was the box of master-made Uniques. Here's the Marble Mental thread where I asked him about those: Ron, your unique .... A couple of questions were left dangling at the end, but he took care of the main stuff in a fascinating way. The old storekeeper he got the boxes from still had the record of the original purchase. How cool is that. One of the dangling questions I'll go ahead and put to you here is, are there any books which list the Unique as a Master company name? Plus there are more pix of game marbles than the little 400 x 300 auction photos I have in Post #2 here. And I learned from one of the "game marble" pix that Master used the name Opal too. And there's a lot more, including scans from Stan Block's Marble Mania, which is packed with original packaging

Thanks guys.

What are the dates for the Albright company? Would these "American commies" have been Albrights in 1933? (click to enlarge) Update: It appears that J. E. Albright was making clays in 1933. The Thomas' Registry dates for the J. E. Albright company are 1918 to 1937. See American Marble Companies, 1905-1942, at AkronMarbles.com for additional Albright listings and more information regarding the meaning of Thomas' Registry dates.

Muslin bag full of clay marbles: (click to enlarge) That was in a Bob Block auction last month. He had this to say:

ah

Er, I mean, does the Akronmarbles site have a name for the kind of line Chuck's mib has? (Yes, I'm feeling smart about seeing that Chuck's mib might have been transitional ... but not smart enough to follow what akronmarbles is saying about pontils versus shearmarks ... okay? Okay. )

I am under the impression that there are vaseline glass transitionals. Is this correct? If so, could Chuck's mib be one?

LOL at how similar the Playday labels are to the Playtime ones, at least the ones on the other 30-counts bags. Alan's Playtime label is odd man out here.

Five 30-count mesh bags, in three colors of mesh: A 15-count mesh bag: This is from Marblebert's auction description of the 30-count bags: This is from Marblealan's description of the 15-count bag:

Weather-Bird marble closeups for comparison: (click to enlarge) (from a marblealan auction, as is the bag with the cat's eyes)

That would be quite an adventure! Downright historical!

Short answer: I think so. The first mesh bag looks like it. I'm pretty sure cat's eyes like that are post-1950 technology, and Alox had stopped making marbles by then. What I've read is that they first distributed others' marbles, then started making their own, then quit making their own, all before 1950, but at that point they had a huge backlog they still needed to distribute. p.s. My information as meager as it is, is cobbled together from a couple of sources and neither is American Machine-Made Marbles. Does that say anything more helpful about the subject? update: I have since read the Alox material in AMMM. And I have seen other Alox packaging from other sources. Alox has made more marbles than most people are aware of. I'm still puzzled about the presence of the cat's eyes, but it is true that Alox had cat's eyes in stock. In addition to whatever regular packaging they had, they also gave cats eyes away as a promotion to sell shoe laces.

(click pix to enlarge) Tit-Tat-Toe: Mesh bag: Another mesh bag:

A few clearies: And a lot more: Contents of a similar box. (Clearer pic, but fewer cool extras, so I can't just substitute this box for that one.) And a few more: That's it for me ... for now ....

No. 13 box, Popsicle-Fudgicle gift package: No. 13 box as a Caraja Coffee promo: Mesh bag: Here are a couple more examples of the contents of No. 13 boxes. Ones with the Fudgicle promo on the bottom.

... feel free to jump in anytime ... ... not that this means I'm done ...

Boxes at Marble Mental: MMM Box Bonanza!!! (super nice cat's eyes) MMM vs. MG (more cat's eyes, and opaques and clearies) Lotsa pix. The ones denoted as Master are a Unique box, two Game Marble boxes, a box of Clearies, and I think a No. 5 box: Ron's Marbles, Toys And Things .

No. 5: Another No. 5, pix a little dark, but shows another view: With Patches, some of which might also be called Cat's Eyes: No. 6, Buster Brown promo: No. 10: No. 13, a different color of box than the No. 13 in Post #2: Another No. 13. I think this one was described as a "white" box. One more. An end shot. Still a little different from preceding colors.

Here are the captions for the illustrations. Might as well transcribe those into searchable text while I'm at it. There are 8 drawings on the scan. Here are their labels. (The parenthetical notes are mine.) burnt agate (bennington) snow-flake (mica) fancy glass agate (latticinio) croton, or jasper bull's-eye glass figure agate (sulphide, of course) carnelian agate bird's egg (multi-colored clay)

I'm remembering why the pix are not labelled as to source on my hard drive. Most probably _are_ from eBay auctions from the past couple of months, because when I switched over to my smart new windows computer I found the smart new browser would not let me download entire eBay auction pages like my stupid old browser on my stupid old macintosh. I guess my stupid old browser was too stupid to read the rules and know it wasn't allowed to download documentation together with pix. So, for the last month or so I've been copying pix one by one and only going to the trouble of making a new word file for the text if I wanted to remember size descriptions for individual marbles or final auction prices or something like that. However, some of the unlabelled pix may still be downloaded from attachments here, and may not have made it to the correctly labelled folder (the one with the matching thumbnail and accompanying text). Or I might have gotten careless in some other way on some other day. So if I have your pix and you want credit ... or you want them gone ... let me know. Alright, I'll be back with more images soon. Gonna at least try to put the boxes in some kind of order.

From ebay auctions. Cat's eyes, 2 different bags, one showing the seam on the back: No. 13 box: Master Marble Game Set, 60 Game Marbles, Size 0:

Transcribed text: Marbles and Where They Come From Is there a wide-awake boy, a boy who goes to school, and knows how to enjoy himself during play-time as well as how to study hard during study hours, that does not know all about "fen dubs," "fen h'isting," "fen bunching"? If there is such a boy, he has missed a great deal of fun in never having learned and used these mystical sayings; and when perhaps he becomes a father or a grandfather he will lose much pleasure in not being able to take a hand in with the youngsters, and tell how he played marbles when he was a boy. Although it is many and many years since I wore the skin off my knuckles and my trousers out at the knees, and flattered myself that I knew all about marbles, it was not until recently, when talking with the wholesale dealer in marbles, that I had to acknowledge that there was still very much to be learned on the subject that is interesting and new. I was told that in ancient times, away back before the Christian era, games were played with marbles, not the beautiful round, smooth, and polished ones of the present day, but with round sea-worn stones and pebbles; also that marbles are frequently met with in the ruins of old cities, and among the other wonderful relics found in the buried city of Pompeii. As to which particular nation or people first manufactured stone and glass marbles nothing is known. About the first mention we have of them is that they were introduced into England from Holland as early as 1620. This being the case, the boys have our early Dutch settlers to thank for the first introduction of marbles to this country, as it is not at all probably that the stern Pilgrims would encourage the playing of games with round stones. All the dealers in marbles--and I have talked with very many of them--tell me that the entire stock of marbles for the American market comes from Germany, and that the prices paid for manufacturing them are so low that no American laborer would or could live on such wages. A great deal of the work, such as moulding and painting, is performed by poor little children. I shall never again watch a lot of happy, intelligent, bright, well-fed, and well-clothed American boys playing at marbles but I shall think of the poorly clad German children munching away on a piece of black bread (for that is all they get to eat) as they work on their weary tasks for a few cents a week. Poor little things! it is no wonder they love America, and wish they were human marbles and could roll over here. The common gray marble is made of hard stone found near Coburg, in Saxony. This stone is first broken with a hammer into small square fragments. From 100 to 200 of these are ground at one time in a mill which resembles a flour mill. The lower stone remains at rest, and is provided with several concentric circular grooves or furrows. The upper stone is of the same size as the lower, but revolves by means of water-power. The pressure of the "runner" (the upper stone) on the pieces rolls them over in all directions, until in about a quarter of an hour they are reduced to nearly perfect spheres. An establishment of three such mills can turn out over sixty thousand marbles a week. This operation is for the coarser kinds of stone marbles. In making the finer grades they are afterward place in revolving wooden casks in which are cylinders of hard stone, and the marbles, by constantly rubbing against one another and against the stone cylinders, become very smooth. To give them a high polish the dust formed in the last operation is taken out of the cask, which is then charged with fine emery powder. The very highest and last grade of polish is effected with "putty powder." Marbles thus produced are known to the trade as "polished gray marbles." They also are stained different colors, and are then known as "colored marbles," and are sold by the New York wholesale dealers at from seventy to eighty cents per thousand. What the maker receives for them I leave you to imagine, for the German wholesale dealer must obtain his profit, then comes the cost of sending them to this country, and the Custom-house duty, and a profit for the American dealer who disposes of them at eighty cents per thousand. As there are twenty to twenty-five lines or varieties of German marbles, it is not to be wondered at that they hold their own against even the labor and time saving machinery of America. After the small gray marbles come the largest-sized marbles, or bowlers, now known as "bosses" by the New York boys. These are one and a quarter inches in diameter, and cost from $6 to $7 per thousand. The next grade of marbles includes the "china alleys," "burnt agates," "glass agates," and "jaspers," though with the trade these are all called marbles. China alleys are painted in fine circles of various colors, or in small broad rings, in which case they are known as "bull's-eyes." Some of these are pressed in wooden moulds, after which they are painted and baked. These cost from 50 cents to $7.50 per thousand, according to the size. The better and more highly finished alleys are made of china, carefully moulded, painted, and fire-glazed. These cost from $2.75 to $15 per thousand, the largest being an inch and a half in diameter. Our illustrations in every case show the marbles full size. Next come the jaspers, or, as the boys call them, "Croton alleys," consisting of glazed and unglazed white china handsomely marbled with blue. The "burnt agates" are also china and highly glazed; in color they are a mixture of dark and light brown with splashes of white; when green is introduced with the above colors they are known as "moss agates"; by the dealers they are known as "imitation agates." The prices of these range from $2 75 to $7 50 per thousand. Then comes a very large and beautiful class of alleys known as "glass marbles." These range in size from two inches in diameter down to the small "peawees," and are of every conceivable combination of colored glass. Some contain figures of animals and birds, and are known as "glass figure marbles." These are pressed in polished metal moulds the parts of which fit so closely together that not the slightest trace of them is to be seen on the alleys, which is not the case with most of the pressed china alleys, for if one looks over a number of them sharply he will detect a small ridge encircling some of them. The "opals," "glimmers," "blood," "ruby," "spangled," "figured," and imitation carnelian all come in this class, and are all very beautiful. Now come the most beautiful and expensive of all marbles -- the true agates and true carnelians. These are gems, and are quoted as high as $45 per gross wholesale for the largest sizes. They are of the most exquisite combinations of colors in grays and reds, and are all highly polished by hand on lapidaries' wheels. Last and least in size are the "peawees" or "pony" alleys and marbles. They are comical little chaps no larger than a good-sized marrowfat pea. Of late years gilded and silvered marbles have been introduced, also a style speckled with various colored paints, which are called "birds' eggs." When playing marbles it is well to provide one's self with a pad on which to kneel, thereby avoiding all soiling and wearing out of the knees of one's pants. A rest for the hand when "knuckling down," consisting of a piece of the fur of any animal, will be found very convenient when playing on coarse sandy soils.

Just pix, 'coz I have a bunch of 'em on my harddrive but as of this moment only one link in the Master section here. One problem is that I don't know where all of them came from. I'll start with the ones I do know. Dave's Shooting Star bag, along with some Tiger Eyes. (Dave, I went ahead and reposted this instead of linking to it since it sounds like you're not all that happy with how ImageShack is handling visitors.) And here's the Sunburst box from eBay I think you were hoping someone had saved pix of. Size 2. (It was too hard to decide what to leave out, so that's everything but the pix of the top and bottom. I've got those too if you want 'em later. ) Now here are some Meteors. I don't know whose. More to come, but I'd better stop and see if I can upload this much at once. 10/20/2021: Master sample box, with correct contents, from Joanne Singleton.

"Marbles and Where They Come From," by A.W. Roberts, published April 17, 1883 in Harper's Young People Harper's Young People, Vol. 4, 1882 - Google Books, pp. 379-381