spara50

A cool letter from American Toy Marble Co. dated February 1899. From A.L. Dyke general manager. This letter is really unique in that it is marketing marbles for girls. The letter reads: Feb. 2, /99 Dear Sir:- We are writing you in reference to our new penny marble, in fancy colors, and of which we are sending you a sample via this email. This marble is bought largely by little girls to bounce on the walk. We call this marble our #7 Fancy colored bowler, packed in bags of fifty at $4.00 per M. A barrel will hold 60 bags. Would be pleased to have you give them a trial, Respectfully, American Marble & Toy Thought someone might enjoy seeing this.

Though I usually don't agree with Johns rambling and farfetched theories, I have to agree with him this time. LOL...

Original photo of 1929 Champions with trophies.

An original train ticket to have lunch at Valley Forge. 1925 Marble Tournament. (front and back)

Somewhere I have a newsletter from an American Japanese internment camp from WWII that has news about a marble tournament held in the camp. Gotta track that down.

Wow cool box. Looks like a homemade game. I wonder if it was a prototype? I;ll bet there is a Lucky Boy label under the red box top cover. Great find!

Nice Chuck. Those are huge! Funny how patch marbles as rare as these are to find kinda of get overlooked in the collecting world.

Spent many an hour talking to Art. Great guy, learned a lot from him. Boy did he help a lot of people out making inserts for our Akro tins? I owned a few of his 'custom' boxes as well. Always the life of the party. Miss him.

Notice the boy in the negative below is not the same as the final cardboard cutout. The rest of it is the same. Maybe some test cutouts before the final product. What ever happened to these?

I have searched all of my paper archives and can't find anything other than the postcard of the soldier shooting marbles. That is a tough time period. Lot's of period pictures of children, but anything related to soldiers is a tough find.

This was the best box of them I've ever found. Oxblood and aventurine.

These are hard to find. Only found a handful in many years. The Ajax are 1", Bonux are 5/8". There are amazing European cats especially with oxblood. Edit: Sorry didn't see the post by Al.

Here is the cardboard cutout made from the two pieces in the negative. See the cuts in the back piece where the boxes of marbles would slide into? Would love to know the history of this negative? He said he found it with a camera? Really cool.

Awesome find. I have this original photo from 1929.

Could be worse, you could have paid $542 for another fake Art Jones box. https://www.ebay.com/itm/VINTAGE-AKRO-AGATE-FANTASY-GIFT-BOX-TRANSLUCENT-PATCH-BRICK-MARBLES-5-8-034-/173068698786?_trksid=p2047675.l2557&ssPageName=STRK%3AMEBIDX%3AIT&nma=true&si=LiYdrk1vB9EN5wW5l9fjR3KywuA%3D&orig_cvip=true&rt=nc There's a fake red Popeye box of his on right now also. No matter how many times you try and warn people, they never listen.