shiroaiko

@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.

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.