Lol ... How Many People Invented " The " Marble Machine?

[Steph]

The inventors of "the" marble machine include at least

• Martin Christensen
• Berry Pink
• Art Fisher
• Clinton Israel

That is, according to various reports. There might be others. There have been so many that I've lost track.

The reports aren't just saying that they invented one type of machine. They out and out mean THE machine. A 1970 article about Vitro says Art Fisher founded Vitro in the 1930's after inventing his machine and before he came along glass marbles were made by hand.

Same story with Israel. Before he invented the first automatic machine in 1926, marbles were handmade. This was reported in 1959, in a very nice full page article which identified Israel as "West Virginia's Marble King".

Charles Turnbull is said to have designed and built most of Ravenswood's equipment but I don't see him credited with starting it "all".

[Steph]

Here are some clips while I'm going through my files.

 

Israel's credit from 1959:

 

Pink's from 1962:
 

 

Fisher's, from 1966 and 1970 (including 'em both just to show the story seems to have started before Fisher sold the company 🙂