PlanB

These marbles seem to have been weathered by immersion in water. If the water was slightly acidic and moving, as on a beach, it may wear down the marbles unevenly and cause the odd shapes. Just a guess.

From your pictures I see that CA#1 is a Pumpkin. They are not rare, from 1985. If you don't have another source, I can mail one.

These don't seem to be that expensive. I recall $10 to $20 range.

Sept/07

Hey Catfish, Can that marble be an Alox?

I have seen an Akro advertisement mentioning the #125 box, that was dated 1931. However, the ad mentions 24 marbles, so perhaps there was more than one style of the #125 box.

Lots of buyers are still fooled by these newer cats. Just a few days ago, someone paid $15 for one on Ebay, as it was advertised as a St. Marys vintage cat.

I'm assuming that these are new. I didn't think that Marble King was still making cat's eyes for sale to the collector..... I thought they were mostly into industrial marbles now. Those look great.

I admit that I'm not good at deciding if someone is serious or not. But if you are, I couldn't disagree more.

Does this thread not belong in the "Buy, Sell, Trade.." forum? After 5 months, enough already.

I believe those are Jackson.

I don't believe they are...the ribbons are a bit wide. But they look very much like Ravenswoods.

Sure has that Marble King look.

A lot of the Heaton's cats where quite normal in appearance -- ie. the vanes came together in the center. The group on the right in the first post are most likely C.E. Bogard. They had the vane separation, the purpley colour, and the sprinkling of air bubbles.

Not Marble King. Most likely Japanese.

I don't believe Vitro made any six-vane cats of this style. They made 4 and 5 vane and then produced the cage-style for more vanes. This type of 6 vanes tended to be made in the far east(ie. Japan) and by Vacor, although the Vacor ones usually didn't fill as much of the marble.

It might be a Marble King St. Marys blue/yellow. BTW..when taking pictures, it may be best to use a dull, mat background. Otherwise the light is reflected back through the marble and confuses the image.

Right after we noticed that he was getting lots of votes but still sliding higher to around 130, the site went down for a time. I think there must have been a glitch. When the site came back up (I guess after some repairs) his position number was much lower, and more in line with the voting. BTW, I don't think voting more than once every 8 hours makes any difference. If you reload the page before voting a second or third time, you can see the time needed for your next opportunity.

I never saw the word "Marbles" etched into the glass. I believe it was painted on. That may have been done later, after the machines had been in use for dispensing gum balls. Some marbles had been sold by a similar machine with a slightly larger opening at the bottom, to allow a larger object to fall through. The items in these were plastic trinkets, and some of these had marbles in them. Perhaps some entrepreneurs converted the gum ball dispensers to address the demand for marbles.

I think this is just another marketing ploy. The only word that I ever saw on these was "Marbles", no doubt used by jobbers or vending machine makers. I can't imagine a company like Akro to use a vending machine to sell their marbles ( or any other company, for that matter). Why set aside their own proven packaging?

It was my understanding that Vitro (under Paris) went bankrupt in 1985, so I presume there were no marbles produced in the following 2 years. When Viking bought the company in 1987, they used the same headers, but presumably removed the Paris name first. If not, then they used the same headers until they were gone, and then used only the Vitro name. In either case, the Cosmics were in packages without the Paris name, so the oldest they could be is 1988. I think Viking moved the company in 1989 to Anacortes, and the Cosmics no longer show in that packaging. It seems reasonable to assume they were made prior to the move.

The original packaging that contains Cosmic Rainbows does not have the Paris name. Paris put their name on the Vitro labels after they used up the Gladding headers. I would have to assume that Cosmic Rainbows were made by Viking Rope and not Paris, since the name had been removed. That would put them later, about 1988 to 1989.

The cage style cats were around for quite a while, already made by Gladding in the 1970's. The horseshoe may have been Anacortes only, as I've not seen them prior to that time. The Cosmic Rainbows may have been a bit earlier in 1988-89, prior to the move, and only made for a short time. The Anacortes bags don't seem to have any.

They moved Vitro to Anacortes in July 1989, so it could still work.

I believe that the bag in the original post is about 10 years younger than the 30 years assumed. These labels were used by Paris Manufacturing in the mid 1980's, after they used up the ones with the Gladding name. Like these ones.... When Viking Rope bought Vitro, they also used old headers, but no doubt dropped the Paris name. That didn't happen till around 1988 or 1989, so the bag is probably 20 years old