More Pics From Sara -- Mostly Cat's Eyes

[Steph]

Picture 1

Picture 2

Picture 3

Picture 4

[Steph]

Picture 1 shows mostly cat's eyes and mostly American made. A lot of Vitro cage style cat's eyes and some single color non-cage-style which may include some Marble Kings or may also be Vitros.

The big blue clearie at the bottom left looks like it might have an iridescent coating, which would suggest that it is foreign. Is that the same marble as in Picture 4?

These fall in the range of "commons", and so are generally worth only a few cents apiece. Some exceptions noted in next post.

[Steph]

Boulders (the ones which are close to an inch in size ... or bigger) could bring more than just a few cents even with the common varieties.

Picture 2 has a few interesting marbles:

The white-vaned boulder (2nd from the left on top) could possiby be a big Peltier banana with a nonconventional core. Or it could be a pretty Vitro. Might be worth something.

On the left side of the middle row ... that could be worth something too -- if that base is transparent blue like it looks to me, a Vitro or a Cat's Eye collector might want to add that one to there collection. Tinted-based vitros are not that common, and in boulder size that's really nice.

Also in the middle row ... third from the right ... that might be a Peltier rainbo.

[Steph]

In Picture 3 you have foreign cat's eyes and American-made Peltier bananas.

Some of the banana-like ones could possible be foreign.

But the plump ones in the crystal clear bases -- go with Pelt bananas.

Pelt bananas are popular, and could be worth a little bit of money. Don't know if any would go for more than a dollar, but I think we get above the "few cents" range. I'd guess the ones with adventurine to be worth more than the ones without.

The three-vane and six-vane foreign ones are generally worth pretty much nothing. Since even the newest marbles sell for a few cents apiece in stores you might find someone who would give you something for them but mostly they're not considered collectible. There are exceptions. I don't see the exceptions in your group though. [Edit: again, the boulders might be worth more to someone.]

With your six-vane ones, notice that the six vanes are three pairs of vanes. Like red-red followed by white-white followed by blue-blue.

When the vanes take different configurations that's when we get to collectibility. Here are two examples of other variations. These are called cross-throughs.

Dark blue pair and light blue pair with a white cross-through:

Three-way cross-through:

There is also an American variety with cross-through vanes which is considered collectible. You can see some of those here:

Edited January 23, 2015 by Steph

[Steph]

p.s., the blue-tinted marbles in the bottom center of Picture 3 may be of interest to someone too. I just can't place them at the moment. Maybe a more detailed picture of vanes would help. The sharper the banana-like vanes are the more likely they are to be foreign.

[sarab]

thank you again Stephanie. I appreciate your time.

[ann]

I think the blue-tinted base glass bananas are foreign, too. Awhile ago I saw some and bought a few to see if they were Pelts, like the seller was saying, but the base glass isn't quite as clear -- and there were very faint radiating wrinkles at the poles (near the points of each banana), which usually means foreign. But you have to look pretty closely.

[sarab]

Thanks too Ann!

Peltier says only the Root-Beer-Float banana-type has a tinted base, amber.

LOM has a waiting list for Bananas. Hmmmm.

[Steph]

One reason I'm a little hesitant to commit on tinted bananas is that I have a small sized honey amber banana which has been attributed to Peltier. (The root beer float one is a bigger marble.)

But there's always an exception to the rule, isn't there. Basically what Ann said is what you should go by.

Someone might want the blue-based ones even if they're foreign. It could take a different kind of marketing than selling Pelts would.

[ann]

I have one of the bananas in yellow glass too, Steph. Got mine from Alan B., back in the day. I seem to remember him saying that all of the ones that he'd seen / handled had come from the same person. I think there were fewer than 20 or so? Maybe a serious Pelthead would know more . . .

[Steph]

Joe McDonough found them. ... and gave me one.

I guess I could/should take a pic for the yellow thread.

[pedidoll]

[sarab]

From inkspotantiques.com:

However, most cat's-eyes you find today at shops and yard sales will be foreign made, and the base glass strongly tinted green.

and this: (I've already read bits of the below from you experts here!) note blue comment below.

The key cat's-eye marbles to collect are the unusual varieties, like those where the vanes of one color cross the plane of another color. If you look at multicolor cat's-eyes, almost all will have the colored vanes in "v" pairs. Cross-plane cat's are rare and valuable. The most valuable of these are the “St. Mary’s” cat’s eye of Marble King, made at their St. Mary’s, West Virginia Plant before it was destroyed by a flood.

Other cat’s eye you should collect are "hybrid" cat's eyes where there is more than one color on a single vane. The best of these are the 3-color frilly vane cat’s eyes by Vitro Agate. Look out also for rare colors, marbles with adventurine, three color nine vane cage cat’s eyes, and marbles with a colored glass base (blue is most typical).

[ann]

Joe McDonough found them. ... and gave me one.

That's the name!

[Steph]

Good stuff in those snippets, Sara.

Yeah, bottle green tint is common and not generally desirable. Blue is often deemed special. Red is even more special than blue.

I had some with a peach-tinted base. Sold them on ebay for more than the average amount ... think maybe I got around $4 per marble in a small group ... but don't recall for sure.

Historical note: it was a fire not a flood which destroyed the St. Marys plant.

[Steph]

I had some Vitros (I think) which had three vanes of one color on one side and three vanes of a different color on the other side.

And if I recall correctly many of those vanes had serious sparkle. Like sparkle even in red vanes and white vanes. I wish I still had those ... but at the time I was buying marbles to turn around and sell ... and those sold well.

Don't know if that sparkle counted as aventurine but that's how I billed it 'coz I still don't know any other way I could have billed it.

[sarab]

check out my green banana, 4th from righ. yeller!

Oh, I used a resource with wrong facts.......should have known you'd catch it.

[Steph]

What? Huh? Yellow base on that banana?

... check to see if it lights up under blacklight .....

Yellow is cool. Lighting up be WOW.

Did you check all the greens in sunlight for aventurine?

[sarab]

I'll check sunlight tomorrow and hold back the possible yellow based until keychain blacklight arrives next week, with show-offs, and with calipers.