Lucky Dog Marbles?

[Steph]

Anyone know about those? Have any?

[disco005]

i'm not sure, what do you know about them?

[Steph]

Just that they might have been made in Michigan in 1995 or before.

There might still be Lucky Dog branded marbles but I haven't seen anything about where they might have been made after 1995. I found an email address for the person who seems to own the Lucky Dog brand. I wrote a short note. I didn't get a response though.

[glangley]

Very, Very interesting since they were made in Michigan, I think this will be my new thing to OCD over. Lol!! I bought a marble pouch at an antique place last weekend that came from the Cadillac Bank here in Michigan and I was stoked! It had two steely mibs in it, one 5/8ths and one +1inch. I take all my steely's and slap them up on my gun case where I have two rare earth magnets. The kids just love to play with the balls and magnets, so it's good. The odd thing is that even though both steely's I got from the pouch look chrome, only the small one will stick to the magnets. The large one is heavy enough, looks chrome but has very, very little attration to the magnets. Like it possibly has an iron core surrounded by something else, but it isn't lead as it's hard as nails. Just odd, so I keep it on a bottle cap and well away from my glass mibs. Please keep us posted on this company that was here in Michigan. And I will do what I can do dig up some information. Because I live here, generally in the center of the state, just a bit East, I would be willing to go to Chesaning and maybe find where the factory was, talk to some older folks and maybe stop by the library or the District Court house, US dept of Commerce? this is very interesting, and maybe a great place to stop by and take some pictures!

God Bless!

[MrsMopar]

This is what I found...

Scroll down the page a ways:

http://www.charlieswoodshop.com/information.php?info_id=16

[glangley]

Very cool, I will have to get ahold of this guy and find out if they actually made their marbles, or if they are repackaged Chinese imports. God Bless

[Steph]

Thanks Felicia. I think I sent my query to the first email address on that page.

Oh my, I thought I had tried the toll-free number on that page, but I guess not. Just tried it now and got an answer. I took Mr. Charlie Hall away from a job and he had to get back. But here's some of what I learned in the few minutes we spoke:

They do not make their own marbles, per se. They "remanufacture" them, doing whatever it takes to imprint them. With logos. Like Felix the Cat and Betty Boop. Oh no, I didn't ask if they were responsible for the Bennett comics reproductions. Someone will have to ask.

If you want imprinted marbles, these are the people. They don't make as much now as they used to because demand for logo marbles fell about five years ago, and because so many other people have done the imprinting without license. :-( . . Lucky Dog gets licenses when needed before they make their marbles.

In addition to the imprinted marbles they keep something between 25 to 50 million marbles in stock at any one time. They have Marble Kings for the brain teaser games and I think for Chinese Checkers replacement sets. They use 1" Vacors for the logo marbles. I think they might have used Marble King in the past, but I'm not sure. Mr. Hall was called back to his production line while he was explaining.

In the logo marbles they don't run individual ones or little lots. You need to need 1300 to make it worth the set up. BUT if you do happen to want smaller numbers you might like to give them a call. They do have some stock on hand, from overruns from past jobs. (e.g., Coca Cola marbles, I think he mentioned, and it might be interesting to learn what all else ....)

Mr. Hall has been around a long time and seems to know a lot of people in the marble industry. It was a fascinating phone call, and I get the feeling he'd welcome emails. He apologized for not writing back -- was out of state -- but he said if I had any more questions either write or call.

I need to remember to send a thank you note. :-)

[Scoop]

Hey Steph, thanks for bringing this up... I wish I'd seen it earlier. But, the bloodhounds found the info anyway!!!

Yeah, Lucky Dog was "The" name to know if you wanted to print logos on marbles... Several people had "Business Marbles" rather than business cards.... I know that Bert Cohen had some and there was a printed marble that advertised the Greenberg's book... I don't know for sure, but I'd bet they were both done by Lucky Dog.

Despite the issues with logo marbles, I never remember hearing a bad word about Lucky Dog. I never knew anyone there, but it seems many people I knew did, and it seemed they were always regarded with good vibes and respect...

I've often wondered what happened to them... I assumed they were no longer in business. It's great to know that their still rollin' around (sorry, my bad... )