shiroaiko

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.

Fruit stripes is a lovely name! In Tokyo there is an antique shop called Toritori which specializes vintage toys. The shop owner does Instagram. Please find her posts @nishiogi_toritori. I'm sure you would enjoy her posts and find something you would like. I haven’t melted any of Seike’s marbles myself, so I don’t know the COE. For cat’s-eye base, makers typically used recycled cullet. The colored glass needs to be compatible with the base, so I’d guess they formulated the colors to suit whatever cullet was available at the time? Satake started supplying glass to lampworkers in the early Showa era, but I haven’t come across any specific connection to marble makers—either transitionals or early machinemades. Have you heard of Kamitani? According to their records, they supplied colored glass to marble makers as early as the Taisho era. All the marble makers except Seike seem to use Kamitani colors. I once asked Kamitani about COE. They said they provide both soft and hard versions of each color so that marble makers could adjust for compatibility. I had been a lampworker for almost 20 years. I loved Satake, but also used Moretti/Effetre and other glasses like North Star. You know Satake and that surprises me!

Patch and ribbons in various reds. White is supplied to the slots which make ribbons in these marbles. One ribbon looks blended with a bit of red.

Hello Shamrock Marbles! Thanks for your interest. I'm happy to hear you like them. Below are variations of his marbles from local finds (not from the family).

Hi Aidan, thanks for your comment!😃 When Reiko shared the story and marbles with me, sharing them with others became my duty. I hope my report reach to many people here too.

Hi Ric, I also thought they are good... In Morito's "Marbles", similar looking marbles are shown as examples of 1945-1955 marbles (Showa 20's marbles). The 1959 Census is the last record I could find the entry of Seike's business, Nippon Special Glass Ball Mfg. Ltd.

Patch marbles. 12.5-13.4 mm. 17 mm for the most of the marbles.

White-base ribbon marbles.

Sounds like your wife had an eye for value—even if it meant raiding your stash! 😂 I guess she selected things which appealed to her most. I know cat's eyes don’t always get a lot of love from collectors, but they're part of childhood memories to lots of people (as E. A. Kempski says in her book). Marbles can go from being “just rocks” to treasures once you start digging into their history and craftsmanship. I hope the research I’ve been doing on Japanese marbles helps with that. Talking about Mr. Morito, too busy to research marbles may not be nice to say, but I can’t really blame him. He's the person who founded the Japan Marble Association, published newsletters and a marble book, planned marble events for kids, and even opened marble museums— while running a big business and pioneering fiber optics in Japan. He traveled around the world. His patents counted somewhere over 80 ( if my memory is accurate). He wasn’t retired when he dedicated his passion into marbles, either. I have some marbles from Seike family for posting today. I hope you enjoy looking at them!

Ribbon marbles with a window, starting with darker reds. Reds in a lighter shade. In dark amethyst. Blues.

Submerged ribbon marbles.

20 years ago is a long time ago...I wonder who got the 10 gallons of mystery marbles. I wish Mr. Morito could have done research on Japanese marbles and publish articles for the marble community two decades ago. Below is an article titled "The Marble Boss Next Door" by Tsutomu Kushima, in the magazine Shosetsu Hoseki in 1999. When Mr. Cohen asked Morito to “research the history of Japanese marbles,” he did the fieldwork. Back then, no one was seriously researching marbles, and he realized that without some sort of organization, it would be nearly impossible to gather reliable information. So, he decided to establish the Japan Marble Association himself. Morito said, “Ideally, someone else with a genuine interest in marbles would take it seriously and do the work. But for now, I’m the one who knows the most about it. I just hope I can pass the baton to a folklorist or someone who’s willing to dig deeper, because I’ve got plenty of other things I want to do.”

Hi Ric, I love to see your marbles too! Talking about the ribbed vane cats, the first cat's eye book by Marlow Peterson and Larry Castle has Seike's in page 18. They are classified as horseshoe-type.

A white ribbon/patch with a vane. The green is especially beautiful in these marbles. The white bleeds on the surface. It includes white sand like bits. (but the surface is totally smooth)

White ribbons.

White ribbons, starting with bicolor base glass.

Marbles with green and blue ribbons.

Purple ribbons on bicolor base glass. The purple shines metallic although it is not a luster sheen. A few got bicolor stripes of purple and white.

The two have hybrid vanes. Seike is the maker who made Stripey cats. You would see white sand like bits which look like "fish disease" on the left. When I visited glass makers in Osaka, I asked questions about the spots whenever I went. Every one agrees that opaque white doesn't have such a problem in a natural situation of firing. My guess is Seike mixed refractory material which is made into powder with opaque white. The vanes are in a combination of yellow and orange for this marble.

The marbles from the family continue. 3 cat's eye marbles with uneven vanes. 2 marbles with a combination of a vane and ribbons. The light purple turns dark on the surface.

Thanks for the examples of American swirls. Ebay marbles are sometimes not reliable...

😃❤️

You are welcome.❤️I still have lots of pictures to be shared. Please look at them when you have time.

Thank you, akroorka, for your thoughtful comment. People here have already accumulated a lot of research on Japanese marbles. I believe that comes from love and pure interest for marbles. This makes a big encouragement for me to be here. Thank you for the opportunity to share and learn together.