Al Oregon

There is not an easy answer except that the US companies did not make the 3 color, 3 vane cats'eyes nor did they make the 3 color, 6 vane cat's-eyes that are the most common ones you find in the Japanese cat's-eyes (and ones made in Taiwan, etc.). Here's pic of type of marble in bag. However, both US and Japan (and Korea & India and..) made one color cat's-eyes with various # of vanes.

Good cause!

And here is a pic of a Codeg box with wirepulls - not mine.

Out of my collection, here are some bag pictures of Codeg - some say 'Empire Made' and some say 'Foreign Made'. The 'empire' jives with Tony's mentioning somewhee in the British Empire so maybe the Made in England meant just that...?

Here's what the green one looks like - not my picture.

I emailed Alan and here was his reasoning: My explanation was that some Peltier marbles could fall into either category, NLR or rainbo..I would consider these transitional from one to the other. What convinced me that this one was earlier, and therefore probably NLR, are the colors and quality of the glass, which to my eye are superior to what one would expect from the cheaper war-era glass used by the company. That said, I may be wrong--it wouldn't be the first time--but I have to go with my gut. ~~~Alan

Now to really confuse you, look at these that I have. Different color header on one; a couple Playday labels that are similar plus a newer Playtime pkg (there are a variety of these latter one swith different locations - may not be related to older Playtime but might be an older jobber or toy company used name...?)

I think Alan noted somewhere that a lot of Alox's empty bags, marbles, headers were sold at auction when they closed (kind of like with Champion and their Milton Bradley, Nationwide, etc. headers) and then the bags were filled afte the fact with Alox marbles and, when they ran out, othe company marbles - primarily MK from what I have seen in bags. Some of hte Coca Cola mesh bags were the Alox 'filled' bags. Probably Weather-Bird also.

That is sad news. I met Jim at the WVMCC Show a couple of years ago. mY prayers go out to his family. (Note to Lou - don't forget to put this in the other forum when it's 'completed').

Beautiful - thanks for en'lightening' us!

What's interesting to me is that you do not see any of he xcolorful sunbursts in any of Master's bag packaging, whether it'd be the 1933 Century of Progress mesh bags, Shooting Star Mesh bags or on up through the polybags. You mainly see meteors, comets and other relatively 'plain jane' type of marbles. I see sunbursts in their boxes, etc. but not bags. I'm assuming that they were the more 'cherished' marbles and cost more to make so they went into the gift boxes, etc. and not into the 'playing' bags.

That is a tragedy! My thoughts to his friends and family. What beautiful marbles!

Is this the type of bag you are talking about, Edna? It's packed away so I can't check the yellow to see if like the one pictured.

Yes, that picture was sent to me by Kevin Wiersig (I think, although Kevin Stump also had Vacors) from his collection. Here are two other pictures showing his Atmosphere collection.

I was just reading that article on my AOL home page - obviously didn't realize the connection - that's a tragedy no matter who it is but seems even more so when there is a connection to our hobby.

And here's a picture of the Red Horse bag

Sorry - didn't see the request before. Here's a picture of Spinners Bag (not mine) and a broken one that I have.

Foreign cat's-eyes were of notorious poor quality at times. This leads to a lot of 'other than normal' marbles. For example, the third pic down - the red/orange, blue & white - is a 9 vane cat's-eye with one of the blue vanes either gone or too faint to readily see. Therefore, it looks like an 8 vane. That's an example of what I personally call an error, not really an 8 vane cat's-eye. Nonetheless, I collect 'error' marbles, too, so I have some like that in my collection. Similarly, in the 5th pic down, it looks like there might be 4 yellow vanes so someone could call that a 10 vane cat's-eye but it's jsut another 'error'. Great pictures by the way - the rest are not 'error' marbles but specific types (in case anyone was thinking I was saying all of those were errors).

Here's a picture that Patry posted of one she had (back in May 2003)

Good info - thanks!

Yes, those are my bags and pics (although I do have other pics from a lot of other colelctors)

Yes, those are my bags and pics (although I do have other pics from a lot of other colelctors)

Couple other pics - first one by TMJ in 2001 and other by Alan back in 2002

Like Chris said, I haven't heard of any 'fake' Vitro Blackies being made but obviously people can ID marbles incorrectly so some of the Vacors, etc. might have 'blackie' traits. Here are pics of two basic Vitro Blackies bags. The latter is one with marbles that, in the wild and not in a bag, might be hard to ID as Blackies.

I won't post pictures of all the bags (unless some one wants some) but Vitro was a primary one in naming marbles in their packaging - from Victory, Conquerors, Spinners (?), Checkers and Chinese Checkers to Whities, Blackies, All Reds, Cat Eyes, Aqua Jewels, Exotic Gems, Tiger Eyes and Yellow Jackets. Then Marble King had their Rainbows, Marine Puries, Big Boy(?), Cat's Eyes, Bowlers(?), Chinese Checkers, Crystals, Rainbow Reds and Marine Crystals. Peltier had their Cat's Eyes, Marine Crystals, Big Boy(?) and, of course, their Champion and Champion Jr (whatever those may have been intended to market?). Heaton had their Marine Gems and Royal Immies(?). Ravenswood had their Paul Bunyans and their Buddy or Buddies(?). Akro had Hot Shot & Hy-Grade bags (what did they mean?). Vacor and Mega named everything. And, of course, the rest had their Cat's Eye named bags. And, someone else can do the names from the boxes.