Al Oregon

When Winnie posted hers, I was thinking letters in a calligraphy style. I agree with the term being used primarily for busy Alleys. Here are some pics - Chuck on the larger individual pics, Block's auction from 2000 on the blue & white and Kevin on the group.

Here's one my late friend Bo Stiff gave me a few years back - my State!

I don't list by # of marbles but one came to mind right away - a Hop Ching bag with 18 noted on the header. You had posted a MM Ritzy bag ad back in 2009 that mentions bags coming in 13 or 18 marbles. I also found an odd mesh bag with "18 Good Luck Marbles". Here's pics.

Waiting... Just shake the bag of cat food, put it in the other room and close the door!

Neat - thanks for sharing!

Good work!

Imposters within its own company. MK St. Mary on left and the 2000 run on the right. Smitty had them at the 2008 IAMC Show.

Vacor "slags"

My guess is that it may have been a jobber type bag. I'd normally guess Berry Pink or Pressman but Pressman usually put his name on the header somewhere. Obviously Peltier is a possibility as they used the 'Marine Crystals' name. Of course, MK did also along with 'Marine Puries' but the MK bags are all polybags. Here are some pics of the ones I have that are similar.

I don't have any pictures of a 16 vane that Patry had. Here is a picture of her 8 vane crossthrus from 2002 - no idea on size - probably mostly in 5/8 range.

Out of the little over 200 different "Japan" bags that I have, 95% are cat's-eye bags. But there are some of the different patch or odd 'bands' on some marbles. Here are a few 'other than cat's-eye' Japan bags.

Some bags of mine - first group are Wales bags from Japan - two different header types

I do get my 'kicks' collecting bags but have not seen that one - Al

Thanks for sharing the short history lesson.

Nice case!

Yup, but they don't ship to the US

Hey great that you had a picture! But, not the top of the header.... Oh well, let's do some detective work - not many clues but here is a Sharpshooter bag from Australia. The bag and style of header (including base paper color) look similar. The ones that I have and have seen are with Vacors in them and all (8) look the style and header. Here's a picture of front and back of one. All have the bar code and 'Made in Mexico' on the back side of tgh header. Too bad we can't see if there is anything on that back side that is showing. However, Sharpshooter may have also bought marbles from China and packaged them this way but I have never seen such a package.

Remember though, you want to do justice for the lady and a $100 marble on eBay, with two bidders who really want it, might go up substantially in final price. Great bunch of marbles! PS - on the boxes, check out Dynalab's website and search Square Petri Dish. You should find those boxes. Sterilin out of UK makes them but they don't appear to have any direct distributors in the US.

The Atmospheres were done by Vacor in a similar size but they were packaged 3 to a nylon net bag with header. I also don't recall seeing any spiral types in the Atmospheres. I would lean to China also.

I'll start with Japanese style cat's-eyes - the 6 vane types. The common one has 6 vanes with 3 pairs of the same color. For example,in the picture of two marbles below, the vanes in the top one are 2 red on the left, 2 green on the top and 2 yellow on the lower right. The lower marbles has 2 white vanes on the upper right, 2 green on the bottom and 2 red on the left. The other pic with a bunch of marbles shows a Japanese 6 vane style but these are called "3 way cross-throughs" as the vanes are not in pairs but "crossthrough" the marble, at the center, so it looks like the vanes are alternating - like red, blue, white, red, blue white. These 3 way cross throughs are harder to find, especially ones without white vanes. The other cross-through type that is more common than the 3-way but still harder to find then the common ones are the "white cross-throughs". In these, only the two white vanes are opposite each other (cross through). The other two pairs of different colors are still next to each other one either side of the white corss through. In the pic, there are 2 dark blue vanes on the bottom, 2 light blue on the top and the white crosses through in ihe middle.

Do you have a picture of the label/header that was on the bag?

Great pics!

Neat, thanks for sharing that one!

The flames were the peewee run but my point was that many collectors would buy those as old - forget the value or # of colors, it's still a marble that looks like it is old (to 90% of the collectors). Forget that the experts know all of the color combos of Alley, CA and Champion flames (really?), 95% of collectors don't. Sure, we can talk about learning and being careful and getting advice and I agree with all those posts. I thought the question that Edna asked about whether there are Jabos that look like old marbles was the reason for my post. I don't have those marbles to post side by side - maybe someone will come out with a book (or even a website) that does that. Here are some more Jabo pics that, with an individual marble, would make collectors think of an old marble.

There are some out there - maybe not in large quantities. You know that. Maybe experienced collectors who have seen all the Jabos can tell that they are Jabos but 90% of the collectors can't - even ones that collect the 'real' types of marbles. I have seen some that mimic the red, white & blue Alleys (or Champion) and other WV swirls (colors & patterns). Here are a few pics where the colors are close - would fool many a collector. These are Kevins from eBay.