shiroaiko

I agree with @Ric. Thanks for letting me know, @akroorka!😃🫶✨

No problem. It happens sometimes.

@Ric Sure! Here are examples of Seike's crease pontils. Naoyuki Seike started making his first transitionals around 1924. These puzzle boxes came to me June 2024. @Joe2 Joe Valencia was the former owner of them. Seike's green often has dark green bits in it. Below is a close-up of spidery crease pontil. As for pinch pontils, I believe they were made by Yasuda. Yasuda was the third largest marble maker in my country before the war, after Seike and Isogami. His Shiba marble factory is known to be started from 1933. Ukichi Yasuda himself served as the vice-chairman of the marble makers' association. The original photo was from an eBay listing which Winnie reported back in 2015.

The examples on the photo are not the closest, but I guess it is Taiwanese.

All of the Japanese transitionals are pre-war made. The maker of crease pontils is most likely to be Seike.

Seike would be the maker of Japanese pinchers. These are some variations sourced from my country.

@Ric If you ever decide to part with any of your boxed wirepulls in the future, I’d appreciate the opportunity to purchase them.

@akroorka Hearing kind words from someone with your experience really made me happy. Thank you—I’ll keep going, little by little. @LevvyPoole I understand how you feel. Sometimes people may find such questions bothersome, and in Japan lately, many transactions have become anonymous, which makes it harder to ask about background. But in my experience, many sellers on eBay are willing to answer questions. I still try anyway.

@LevvyPoole, in that very first year I started to collect marbles, I came across a lot containing many marbles which were thought to be made after the war when severe material shortages struck the country. Although I didn't know anything about them, but I sensed the importance of the marbles being kept together as a group. Every time I acquired a new lot, I always asked the seller about its background and took notes. Often the seller didn’t have useful information, but asking about the history was all I could do for many years. If I were to mix the lots, all my notes would become meaningless. That is partly why I don't mix my marbles.

@Ric, thanks in advance for your help. It's good news to me—I've always wanted to study marbles that are still in their original boxes. The general definition of Veiligglas wirepulls was shaped at a time when Seike marbles weren’t yet recognized in the marble community. Now that we’re seeing three possible makers of wirepulls, I think it’s time we study original boxed sets with fresh eyes.

When we talk about wirepull makers, I think Seike should also be part of the discussion. I know this thread is about Hopf vs. Veiligglas, but to my eyes, some of the marbles shown look like Seike’s work. In the first picture, the box you see is the “16 Bolitas Japonesas” box from Argentina. The second and third pictures show a Codeg box marked "Foreign"—and in both of these cases, I believe Japan would be the most reasonable answer.

@Parmcat You're welcome. 😃 The company started in 1998. Sorry for the mistake.

Yixing Jinzhu Glass Products is the maker. I agree that the bombers are modern because the company was found in 1998. The English name for these marbles is “milky marbles 6,” but in Chinese, they’re called “milky 8-petal marbles". It’s strange, but they use different photos and names for the English and Chinese versions of their website. So it’s worth checking both versions of the site. http://yxjinzhu.com/en/index.asp

@Ric I'm glad you found the little box interesting! These ohajiki and ishikeri were primarily made for the domestic market, which is why there’s very little documentation about them. This is in contrast to marbles, which were exported around the world—so while the records are still limited, at least some survive. In comparison, the ohajiki industry was much smaller than that of marble making. I’ve only found one patent document so far, likely because the production methods were quite simple. That said, before the war, Japan aimed to build an empire across Asia, including in places like Manchuria and other regions where Japanese communities lived. These kinds of toys, along with marbles, were shipped to children in those overseas communities. As for rock-paper-scissors—we call it “janken” in Japanese. It’s still very common for both children and adults, though I honestly don’t know its exact origin. There's historical document from around 1907 that molded glass ohajiki were popular among small children in areas like Nagoya and Gifu. Some of these pieces even feature Chinese characters: 石 (rock), 紙 (paper), and 鋏 (scissors)—but they are quite rare. Here is a reel made by ichijinnokaze2020 regarding rock paper scissors ohajiki. You also mentioned the Arabic numeral. We sometimes see numbers or even alphabet letters on these glass pieces. I've personally seen many with A, B, C, D, and E, but not the full alphabet. Letters like R and others are much less common, so I suspect there were production imbalances. Also, regarding the giya-bako box: all the examples I know of were made for the domestic market. These boxes began appearing in the Meiji era, when glass started to be mass-produced. I suspect glass boxes are not suitable for export. They're vulnerable to long journeys and the weight of other boxes if packed together. I have an Instagram friend I sometimes talk to via PM. Below are some of the ohajiki collection of umelandinsta, including giya-bako boxes.

I have Robert Block's ”Marbles”, where it says on page 130: “Marble making was one of the industries introduced to Japan as part of post–World War II reconstruction.” Most readers in the U.S. probably accepted that as a fact, and I suppose Mr. Block had his own reasons for saying so. What I'm curious about is what kind of historical documents or sources about Japanese marble production were available in the U.S. over the years. That would help explain how such ideas were formed.

My glass toy box (12 × 15 cm) has 10 cat's eyes. 9 are Stripeys. The 7 marbles which I could count 4 vanes. 15-17.6 mm. One got a fat vane which almost fills half of the marble. Mamekeri flat marbles. The yellow ones are about 26mm across, 8 mm thick. Mamekeri and ohajiki with numbers. Mamekeri are bigger than ohajiki. 30-18mm. Ohajiki with paper rock scissor designs and a flower. The green measures 21 mm. Other glass toys that I don't regard as original to the box. They are believed to be even earlier in the production time.

Steph, it is the first time for me to hear about the Winnie's thoughts. It’s encouraging when someone like Winnie had examples to support it. Her prewar box helps to give more weight to the idea that stripeys were already being made before the war. This is a prewar box of glass toys, including stripeys. A local find. Collectors refer to this type of box as a Giya-bako, which means “diamond box.” The word giyaman is an old Japanese term that originally meant “diamond,” but later came to refer to glass. Since all the other toys in and around the box are believed to be prewar-made, the stripeys are most likely from the same period. I am the current owner of the box. I took better photos this morning but the photo library on my computer does not refresh. I will post photos later.

That looks like Seike to me. Partial translucency in base glass sometimes shows up in his marbles. It resembles Yixing Jinzhu Bombers a bit, but they usually have 8 ribbons.

Just to review the timeline of the patents related to cat’s eye marbles: Seike submitted his utility model application related to cat’s eyes on March 3, 1938. Isogami followed to submit his own utility model focused specifically on cat's eyes on March 11. Later, on May 25, Isogami filed a design registration for the same type—most likely an attempt to prevent Seike from making marbles similar to his own. And by March of the following year, Seike’s “stripey” type marbles were already on the domestic market, and a photo documenting them was taken by Kan-ichi Hashimoto. As for the photo itself—I believe it was taken because the photographer was moved by the beauty of these marbles resting in the hands of a hardworking person.

It would be the earliest photo of cat's eye marbles... The search word "びー玉" or marble/s at NDL digital service brought me to the find this morning.

This is a Japanese magazine for photography, "Camera", November issue 1939. It features a photograph being entitled "Marbles" by Kan-ichi Hashimoto. The description below the photo reads " Late March, Tesser f/4.5, aperture f/11, Pan-F, 1/10sec, Yae FS paper, MQ developer, "Marbles" Kan-ichi Hashimoto, (1st exhibition of the Amateur Photography Federation of Tokyo Department Store/s)". We see Stripeys, cat's eyes and a few dark looking marbles on the palms. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/ja/pid/1501861/1/41?keyword=びー玉　橋本

It's a German Marble Museum in Lauscha. The URL is https://www.murmelmuseum.info/ Please take a look at Cee's museum report before you do your research, because he has already learned something on Hopf from the Museum.

I see. How about German marble museum Brian once mentioned? They have artifacts and materials from the 3 bankrupt companies including Hopf. My old friend Helma was once very close to send an inquiry from me, but she kind of forgot. I think you are the best person to do the job. 😃 🫶

Thanks for the update. I've been waiting for the second reply from Renee as well, and it hasn't come either.

Hi Akroorka, and everyone😃✨ It appears to be a Japanese pinch pontil to me.