shiroaiko

I agree!

@Joe2, @davesnothere, thanks for showing me your marbles!🫧✨ I prepared the yellow patches, matching sets for figure 8s, transitionals, and early cat's eyes. Please have a look! Opaque white tends to spread and bleed on the surface. Figure8s and submerged ribbons. We can see many dark green bits here in these marbles. Opaque white with white bits is used for the pair. Earlier type of cat's eyes? Other colors are dark amber and blue. Tatsukichi Isogami filed two cat's eye patents (utility model rights) between March and May of 1938, so based on the records, he’s considered the “father of cat’s eyes” in Japan. IMO, Seike may have been making cat’s eyes even earlier. His ribbon marbles often got unstable ribbons. When he started making submerged ribbon marbles, he might have realized the great potential of vane-like structures inside the glass. Unlike Isogami, Seike's patch/ribbon type vanes are white. The part that carries color, or where he changes color, is the base glass. The yellow marbles are local finds. They don't glow. No fracture. Left two are not spherical. I think the intensity of yellow reflects thickness of yellow. The yellow is very soft. @Joe2, do you find them similar to yours? Smaller marbles are 13 mm. Bigger ones are 17 mm. Other Seike patches with yellow. 17 and 15 mm. I almost forget about this. The yellow is really soft and spreads on alabaster. The ribbon looks affected by the underlying purple. This lot is from the UK. I hope these photos help convey the kind of yellow Seike made and used for alabaster patches.

I'm sorry I mistook your message! The last entry of Seike's business was the 1959 Census. According to Reiko, he passed away in 1963.

@davesnothere Thank you for the detailed photos! I'm familiar with them. They are Seike's!

Ooh, you are kind! ❤️Thank you, but the mushroom has come to you and it is yours. I hope I can find some more in the future. 🫧✨

Hi Ric, I'm afraid that I can say nothing about the Shackman boxes with Japanese marbles...🙏 Why were the wirepulls not made in West Germany when the label says so?

Hi @davesnothere and @Ric, IDing marbles is more difficult without their historical background. My Seike marbles are either from Japan or the UK. I don't know the situation in Canada or in the US, so I'm interested in other's collection. The source is important. Talking about toy marbles in Japan, due to our weak currency, we didn’t buy marbles from Western countries. We supplied marbles by ourselves, so prewar marble lots in Japan basically don’t contain foreign-made pieces. If certain types of marbles are found in both UK (the largest customer of Seike) and Japan, they are highly likely Seike's because he was the dominant exporter among the Japanese marble makers. Isogami and Yasuda made a joint company to reach the countries outside Yen-bloc economy, but it was short-lived due to the war. Ric, your Vitro patches are bold in colors. The patches on those marbles use opaques, and the layers are thin. I see this as advanced production techniques also focused on economy. By contrast, Seike’s prewar marbles often have much thicker color layers. The thickness wasn’t tightly controlled, so they weren’t economical at all. Also, Seike tended to use transparent or semi-transparent colors for these patch marbles. For these reasons, the marbles you showed don't have much of Seike feel to me. To my eyes, Dave's mystery two-color patch got a close color combination to the Vitros. Yet I wonder how translucent or how thick for the mystery marble. I do not own these Vitro patches myself. Please forgive me if my way of seeing is out of focus. I think the smaller group has some of these. Mines are sourced from Germany. For the cat's eye group, I see Seikes, but if I could see bigger images, I can say this with confidence.

@davesnothere you also got dark amber mushroom!❤️

@davesnothere Thank you for taking so many photos! I looked at them closely, and most of them gave me a Seike impression. I don’t mean I’ve seen all of them before, but I understand why you identify them as Seikes. The ribbon marbles in these 4 pictures are siblings. We see bleeding ribbons in opaque white, while a couple of greens on the right got alabaster stripes. I also see white bits in the ribbons, and dark green bits in transparent green. They are Seike traits. The bicolor matrix for sky blue marbles can be on purpose, because I see bicolor examples for ribbon marbles from time to time. The marbles below are submerged ribbon marbles which sometimes look like pseudo-cat's eyes. Although I haven't seen these before, traits like two patches and the mixing of colors tell me they are highly likely to be Seike's. Wispy marbles are fun when they are viewed from various angles. How I wish if I could rotate them on my palm. 🫧✨ Do you think veneer type marbles are post war production? The marbles below are a local find. In my country there is one big collector of old Japanese glassware who is also interested in marbles. Many old marbles go straight to him because antique dealers help to build his collection. In recent years he started to supply (small?) numbers of glass toys to the antique market. These marbles are from his previous collection, bought from a shop in Tokyo. The green patch on the left is nice! I like it a lot! I am happy to see mushrooms! 😃 I wonder if I can identify the two color patch (the far right) as Seike, if it is mixed with patch marbles from other makers. I still cannot figure out the dark color... is it purple or black?...I thought I had purple and black examples somewhere and I found purple and brown. I think brown is rare. The multicolor ribbons got interesting color combinations! Do they belong to the same lot? Interesting that the rare color mushroom has a hint of another color on the yellow. I thought the color combination of yours matches the one of my Insta friend, but yours got darker green. Is there a faint line/tint on the yellow for both? You have a three color patch... mines are somewhat bolder. Possibly postwar production. The orange is especially intense in the middle marble. Is it a transparent color? The 3 color patch is very nice! 🥰 Orange transitionals must be pretty rare… I only have one, and even that one is ambiguous. I always wonder whether it’s a transitional or a swirl. At the moment, I’m thinking it’s more of a swirl, since I can't find a pontil. Seike's transitionals got a crease pontil. @Joe2 kindly offered me to purchase the puzzle box last year. Later I found another set which houses Japanese bisque dolls at Etsy (already sold out). The dolls were originally owned by an elderly English lady.

I also took other photos this morning. They are patch/ribbon types in variations. The right two are clear-base marbles. (Please just ignore the orange marble on the far right. ) 4 with clear part. 1 without clear. Marbles with 3 ribbons. In one example one of the stripes goes under the white.

@davesnothere please post your pictures here! I am happy people come and join the thread! This afternoon I came across to an interesting Instagram post. 😃 @eyes_of_stone_beachcombing has a handful of beachcombing finds on her palm. The white-base purple patch on her thumb appears to the same Seike type I just prepared for posting today. I hadn't seen purple ones. This kind of coincidence makes me excited. Below are the two examples I took photos of in the morning. The idea is the same as beige/orange tint marbles. A color on a color. It's also fun to see how different the two types of red behave on white glass. The semi-opaque red tends to spread and bleed on the surface, while the opaque red settles in just right—indicating that the red and white have closer melting points.

@davesnothere The story of painted marbles is first for me too. I'm interested in your marbles, and I look forward to reading your thread. 😃 You are right that Seike made figure 8s. Early ones use a color combination same as transitionals. I think when he started experiments on white ribbons, they were in alabaster white and the number of stripes was 3. The glass was harder than the transparent base glass, resulting in a strange look. I personally call them 小 (pronounces like "show") marbles. The Chinese character means small. Later he switched the alabaster white to opaque white, which had a lower melting temperature than the base glass. The opaque white spreads well on the surface. Although the color blotches on the surface, the marbles look better than the previous version with alabaster white. Something interesting is Seike mixed white powder with opaque white. This was done probably on purpose.

This is a page from my marble book which features an original package of mushroom marbles. It doesn't provide the maker's name, just saying "made in Japan", but from the glass and configuration of the marbles, I identify them as Seike's. The dark amber is the only one that I own for this type. It has a faint orange line on the upper side of the white patches. My SNS friend (@kingbee1969 at Instagram) has at least 3 mushrooms, including ones of rarer colors. All the other marbles in my collection got a skinnier proportion for the stalk part of mushrooms, or... the white patches are wispy. Or somewhat opposite in the use of transparent/opaque colors. If you take a close look at the marbles in the puzzle boxes, some might notice two of the marbles got a light orange shade on the white patches. When I first saw these marbles, I assumed the orange tint was due to color contamination. But after coming across other examples, I came to understand that it was part of Seike's intentional design.

@davesnothere Good to hear that you got these marbles and I see what you mean. Talking about the toughness, you are probably right in saying old Japanese glass is softer. I remember when I got my first American marbles from premier makers on my palm, they looked amazingly beautiful as if they were freshly sent from a factory. I could tell they were hard and tough. About colors, it seems both crystal glass and soda lime glass can have bright colors. I just checked Satake home page to refresh my memory. The colors indicated by a star are soda-lime glass, others are lead crystal. Glass on the 4th sample board is the latest varieties of non-lead crystal, which were not available when I worked. I had an impression that vivid colors were for soda-lime and softer and cooler tones for lead crystal, but now it has been changed. So we cannot tell the glass types from the color? We need specialists.

@davesnothere Do you think Seike's early glass is made of crystal glass? What I know is Seike made his own glass in his factory. He also designed nearly all the equipment needed for making marbles. His glass furnace made a big contribution to the glass industry. He allowed manufacturers to produce it without asking for royalties, which helped spread the use of the glass-melting furnace he designed. For today my photos are half and half marbles and its variations. This type of marbles appears to be in a combination of alabaster white and a transparent color. Seike's green sometimes has dark green bits, and half & half's are not the exception. I'm not sure if this is intentional, but I have many examples whose white is split or wispy. These are similar looking marbles but the white part doesn't become thick like filling half of the matrix. They are one type of submerged ribbon marbles. Back to the half & halfs, the color part can be wispy sometimes. If the gob becomes long, it becomes folded in half, making itself a buttcrack. The one on the right might not be the best example, but it came from a lot which includes lots of pre-war types of Seike marbles including half & halfs.

These are marble utility model patents Naoyuki Seike had ideas of during August to November 1930. The first one makes (machine-made) ribbon marbles with 3 stripes. The second is about making half and half marbles. The last is the improved version of the second, where the amount of glass which goes through from outlet is controlled by compressed air in a separated manner. My time is up for today. Marble photos continue tomorrow.

You are welcome! I am thankful for what you have been doing too. I saw your cat's eye video years ago, and that encouraged me to speak out in a marble community. There is much information on marble history our libraries and patent office accumulated. I also visited Osaka for the fieldwork. I'm here to share what I have learned with people.

@davesnothere I'm happy to post the pics of his prewar marbles with corresponding patents. Please wait for tomorrow. What I have for today are clearies, the last ones from the family's lot.

Sorry that my reply is late. My husband came back home earlier than the schedule (or I forgot what he told me). I've been busy since yesterday. Seike's pre-war marbles were of better quality in terms of color and bubbles. His product maintained quality until 1943. Keeping the quality became difficult after 1944, due to material shortage, and the real testament came after the war when at least a few marble makers came back to operation in 1946 summer. The result was a mix of good and bad marbles, because you cannot stop the operation even if shortage happens. The table below shows the volume of marble production, measured in tons. Source: History of the Japanese Glass Industry by Shigemasa Sugie, 1950." The Nippon Special Glass Ball Mfg. Inc. (Seike, Nakanishi and Yanagawa) was the only one business which was officially approved making marbles during ww2. In 1950 the number reached 900 tons. You said "this style". Did you mean swirls? I believe I've found most of Naoyuki Seike's patents in prewar time. Are you interested in what marbles those patents make?

A blue swirl. The same shades of blue, the light and dark. Orange swirls follow. In 1936, Seike invented a device for making machine-made swirls. The utility model Showa12 (1937) No.13819 "Glass Sphere Forming Device" was filed on November 13, 1936, and officially published in September of the following year.

I took pictures of yellow ribbons that were forgotten. The clear window part is so small...almost diminishing. I'm not sure if they can be called a marble with a window. The white is a kind of contaminated color. For comparison, I put one white marble beside them on the dish.

Hi akroorka, thanks for the message! If it didn't happen to me, I would not be able to be here! I hope I can catch the horse some time in my future!

Thanks for the compliments! I was not successful or famous as a bead maker, but my love of glass has been strong and it still continues. I had to close my studio in Sendai in 2014, when I had my first and only son. He needed a medical help with his heart and lungs, and my life had changed completely. After 4 years and 7 months our beloved son passed away. I started dedicating my time for marble research after this. I am away from a torch for many years now. These things were the remembrance of my career in my 20s and 30s. Making those small pins was a pure joy. The glass itself is beautiful, I tried not to ruin the beauty.

Mainly glass beads. I started lampworking in 1996, and it was kind of connected to my fond memories in Arizona. I was an exchangee at Northern Arizona University for one academic year. We had a small bead shop in downtown a hippie man ran. My marble hobby started in 1998. These are photos I shared with Brian Graham in December 2021, when we introduced ourselves. I made small number of marbles on torch. The glass is Moretti/Effetre for these pieces. Japanese Satake is kind of too soft and I found it harder to work with to make marbles. Again Moretti/Effetre. I loved the bright colors. These beads are worn with Kimono. Glass head pins for sewing❤️ The glass is Satake. The working temperature is low, so it's easier to make these kind of delicate things. I had a fascination with patina of old glass which inspired me to make this series of glass beads. The material is Satake and thick silver foil. Ocean themed. My love of seashells started as a child.

You are right. Japan has always been limited in natural resources for glassmaking. I’ve often wondered what COEs American marble makers were working with. Do you happen to know? During the war, Japanese glassmakers had a hard time. They couldn’t import borate from America, which really impacted the quality of glass. For example, ampoules made during that period became poor in quality, and they couldn’t preserve the medicine inside properly. Interestingly, Seike named his business “Seike Hard Glass Institute” before the war. He seems to aim to improve glass quality even then.