Steph

If the clear is glass, then it appears to be a fried marble. Glass cracked by extreme cold and heat applied alternately. But that's very large for the typical fried marble. That's why I'm wondering if might actually be plastic, not glass at all. The blue marble is two inches??!! It could be a slag or transitional. At that size, I'm thinking of only two choice. MFC made large slags, but I don't know of they made one in that light of a shade of blue, and I don't know if they ever would have had a pontil like that. So I am not leaning toward MFC. I'm actually leaning toward contemporary because I just don't recognize such a large handgathered marble as being vintage if it doesn't fall into the MFC zone.

Does anyone know what they are? I remember seeing the name on some Vitro item from the 1930's. Maybe it was an ad. Maybe it was a sample box. But I don't remember seeing accompanying marbles. Pretty sure the Du-Lites were mentioned alongside Tri-Lites. Possibly the item was photographed in the Vitro book. But my guest is using my office and I wasn't able to lay my hands on the book quickly when he nicely stepped out for me to have a look around. So I'll have to do a deeper search later. Does anyone here have their book handy? About 15 years ago Tri-LIte wasn't a name in common usage. Now "everybody knows" what they are. Du-Lite remains a secret from me.

Uh oh ... *inches toward couch to peek and see if that's a pod or just a lump*

A family friend has arrived for a two week visit. He brought his two cats. They have been housed in my office -- to help keep them from getting the poop scared out of them by our three cats. My computer access is therefore severely limited for the duration.

I wouldn't expect it to have been intentional, but it is not surprising. I have come to expect more variation with the Vacor version than with the similar Asian style.

99.99% sure that's Vacor. The general pattern for the Vacors is for them to have three pairs of colors, in the way made famous by Asian marbles. But I'm not surprised by three vanes of one color, two of another and one of the third. A key Vacor feature is how thick and wavy the vanes are.

Let's try this:

I was thinking that also, but cautious that I was being too quick to want to start seeing Swedish marbles everywhere. The British spelling wouldn't necessarily mean made in England. Could just be packaged for sale in England. So who knows?

I see the picture. Congrats, Kerry. Interesting look to them. Are they a dense clay? Are they metal? Salco – Lilliput World Ltd

Fascinating. Completely new to me. Thank you!

I've heard the song before. But I forgot I had until I followed your link. mmmmmm, peaches

Vitro. How about a Bullseye?

Sharing here is fine. Your marble! Your discussion! Same topic. Thanks for asking though. Often is good to start a fresh thread.

I say yours is an exceptional one! Very nice.

I agree. Vacor. Colors are right for a Picasso.

Thank you for articulating that. It's what I was thinking.

The orange glow is a bit of a puzzle, but that sure does look Akro.

That's an eyeful! Thanks for photographing and sharing.

Here are some presumably legit boxes with graphics which have more of a stamped look to them. I have that "Brian" posted these. I shared them in one of the threads about that hoaxer Pavcraz So, I'm thinking Brian would be Brian Graham. This is the picture from an auction which prompted the discussion. I think these are legit. Is this rubber stamp or not? I have to guess not, but still a little sloppy looking, eh? Here was the Pavcraz fake which made people so suspicious of the boxes above. He was a one-man wrecking crew to faith in Akro boxes.

I'm not sure why I didn't do this search earlier. I certainly thought of the seller's name. But I've done the search now. Here's an example of a scammer who used stamps and caused quite a furore. It was actually a family of scammers from both coasts. Fake boxes (including supposed Akro and Christensen packaging) came from the East Coast. A fake Eagle Bennington and other fake Benningtons came from the West Coast. And the sellers vouched for each other, without telling of the family connection of course. They took their show to the different forums to try to build up some backstory for their fake goods. Like, "Look what I found at a flea market -- what can you tell me about it?" Then the person from the opposite coast would say he found something similar on his side of the country. Stuff like that. Took some digging to bring the whole picture to light. https://marbleconnection.com/topic/12999-akro-box-izzit-for-real/ Stamp looks different on yours on this particular box. I could probably dig up more examples of that guy's work to see if any of his boxes were a closer match. But stamps just raise red flags for me. Akro started out as jobbers, not makers, as of course you know. I'm just observing that from the beginning they were very attentive to professional presentation. I am given to understand that Craig Snider is now the person to go to if you want a definitive answer on Akro boxes. If he has weighed in on some other venue, I would go with whatever he said.

Such a wonderful person. He was so sweet and helpful to me. I hadn't heard back from him in email in some time. I knew things had to be bad.

LOL ... now that you mention it ... if it doesn't fit the patch makers maybe it's because it's an unswirled swirl. Jabo did it. Why not Alley?

Then I'll say that my first impression was Akro, but if that Pelty green went all the way through I would have completely abandoned that thought. Now I'm still entertaining the thought but have no strong feelings either way. Might run it by Dani if I wanted to pursue the Akro possibility more.

You can see all the way through to the opposite side when you look into the green ribbon in view #2?

I've seen a couple of different size charts in old ads. So yeah, #5 could be different sizes ... all large. But I agree with Ric that No. 5 here would refer to the box style, not size.