Curious

[Marian]

Can you guide me to a good resource about identifying clear marbles and the various pontils?

[Steph]

Those are cat's eyes.  Those are machinemade.    The marks you might be thinking of as "pontils" are seams.  Places where mechanical shears cut the hot glass off.  

[Marian]

Oh! Got it! What are the things inside clear marbles called? Like single banana?

Thank you so much!

[Steph]

Those are "vanes".

 

Like the blades on a weather vane.  The earliest cats eyes had wider vanes making it more obvious why the name was chosen.  

[Steph]

lol ... now I"m trying to find a picture of a weather vane with blades ... and I'm not having much luck  ... so ignore that part!  lol  

 

But they're "vanes".  

[Marian]

Lol! Vanes! Thank you so much...I have a few with vanes that look like they blew out or something..like a flaw.

Is there a difference in the color/clarity of the clear glass with cat eyes? As far as being old versus new? Or all cat eyes considered new or modern?

[Steph]

Cat's eyes may have been introduced in Japan in the late 1940's.  (It's possible they were introduced earlier than that by Vacor de Mexico but we're not certain about that history and they don't appear to have had more than local circulation if they even existed.)

 They (edit: the Japanese ones) became serious competition in the American market in the 1950's.  That's when American companies came out with their own versions. 

Since this is happening pre-1970 those early cat's eyes are considered vintage. 

The earliest Japanese cat's eyes had clear glass. (Possibly with a slight peach tint, I have found.)  Nice glass.  And American cat's eyes had nice clear base glass. 

The Asian cat's eye glass started getting cheaper and they took on a bottle green or gray tint as time went on.

 

Then in this century, Vacor came out with crystal clear bases for their cat's eyes ... very pleasant to look at ... but that complicates the dating process.