What is the earliest you remember seeing marbles like this?

[Steph]

These are boulders from an Alox bag which I got in 2008 from Nancy Frier.  I thought I remembered knowing about this style of marble before that time.  But maybe not knowing where they came from.  

And I thought I remembered seeing Master and Penny King bags containing them, which may have come to my attention around that time but were in circulation before that.  

Now the dates on these 1"-ers is being questioned.  Also when they became available to the public is under discussion.  What are your memories of them? 

Correction: Okay ... the question has been updated.  It is agreed that the marbles were seen before then.  The question is now what packaging they were seen in before 2008, or what packaging they came in which didn't come from a stash from the Alox factory after it closed.  Thanks!

 

 

[Steph]

Here's one of the non-Alox packages I remember with similar:

 

[winnie]

Yeah,they remind me of foreign marbles,that I found in England.

I think thats not the answer you're looking for.

here are some,

[Steph]

That's a good answer though!  Needed to be mentioned.

 

I had some 1"-ers which might have been the American-made version ... but I can't swear they weren't European  ... and sold 'em without ever knowing so I don't have them around to ask about.

[Steph]

Have received word from an esteemed collector that he has known of all three kinds of packaging for some time -- the Master, the Penny King and the Alox.  Has had Alox bags with these marbles for well over ten years -- from two different collectors.  Two bags with four marbles and one bag with seven marbles.  I never heard of the seven-count bag before.  

So that answers the question about them being known in Alox packaging before the marble collecting world got to know Nancy.  

Now the questions are when were they sold and when were they made.  

The Master packaging is from the 1950's or later.  There was some doubt about whether Master Glass could have made such pretty marbles in that decade.  But they did make smaller cat's eyes which are quite pretty -- clear base, nice shades.  So it's not hard at all for me to believe that they could have made larger marbles with similar glass.  

 

[Steph]

For posterity ...

I have learned that the bags are known from the 1950's.  So that clears up the decade.  

I learned from Chuck B. that his marble mentor Ray Cerri bought them during the mid-1950's in South Bend.  Back then Ray and his friends called them Chinese Boulders, so that's what Chuck calls them, in Ray's memory.