"Victory Marbles Box"

[akroorka]

Thanks Al,

I think that those RWB marbles in the bag are pretty close to what is shown. Thanks for the digging time that you did for the subject. The time frame is still in question though.

Lets see some more folks--the more the better--lets rattle this tree some more.

Rattle--On!!

[Al Oregon]

On 8/28/2021 at 10:51 AM, Ric said:

Thanks a lot, Al. They do look fairly similar. Nice bag too - seeing the "Pride" slogan in script is less usual, I think. I get the feeling it's an older bag. One of the things I have noticed, is that the older All Red style marbles seem to have smaller color patches with a lot more white showing between the patches. A lot of the newer All Reds are closer to half and half with a much thinner ribbon of white showing between the patches.

Does this seem to be generally true when you look at the All Reds your collection?

Thanks Again!

Yes, most do have just a thin "line" of white.

[Al Oregon]

On 8/28/2021 at 10:51 AM, Ric said:

Thanks a lot, Al. They do look fairly similar. Nice bag too - seeing the "Pride" slogan in script is less usual, I think. I get the feeling it's an older bag. One of the things I have noticed, is that the older All Red style marbles seem to have smaller color patches with a lot more white showing between the patches. A lot of the newer All Reds are closer to half and half with a much thinner ribbon of white showing between the patches.

Does this seem to be generally true when you look at the All Reds your collection?

Thanks Again!

Yes, most do have just a thin "line" of white.

[PittsburghMarbles]

Those look like Champions to me... I bought some marbles a couple of weeks ago from Roger Hardy (dude that has the best akro collection in the world) at his antique store in Clarksburg and he has a huge bucket full of 1960s Champion marbles and some I got look identical to those. And he knows his mibs.

[PittsburghMarbles]

I had to run upstairs to look, here's some of the 1960s or so Champions I bought from him 2 weeks ago. And all of the mibs in that giant bucket of mibs were marbles he purchased from Champion Agate in the late 60's. 

Untitled by Pittsburgh Marbles, on Flickr

Untitled by Pittsburgh Marbles, on Flickr

 

I dont know though, they look a tad bit different than yours posted perhaps but not really. I'd go with Champion but I guess yours could be vitros or Akros too ugh, sometimes patches are so freakin ridiculous. 

[Ric]

8 hours ago, PittsburghMarbles said:

 

Thanks for the post! I think those look like a pretty good match for the mibs in my box, but I am pretty confident Champion didn't make patches, not on purpose anyway. They did round up marbles from other companies to package in the Bicentennial bags, though. Maybe these are leftovers from that effort.

Either way, if Roger did get those out of the pit at Champion, it suggests they are quite a bit newer than we were thinking. To me, these marbles look mostly like newer MKs but I was leaning Vitro because of how many have seams that are offset by 90 degrees. The offset seams is pretty common for Vitro and not too common for MK so . . .?

Another observation that leads me to think these marbles might be newer and the boxes doctored is because I have never seen one of these boxes beat. Every one I have ever seen looks brand new.

I'll check my Bicentennial bags to see if there are any marbles like this in them. If you or anyone else has one, it might be helpful to check them for mibs like this.

[PittsburghMarbles]

^
i bought a bunch of the Bicentennial bags this year and I don’t recall marbles like those in them. I guess I’ll have to find the bags. 

[Ric]

1 hour ago, PittsburghMarbles said:

^
i bought a bunch of the Bicentennial bags this year and I don’t recall marbles like those in them. I guess I’ll have to find the bags. 

You have to be careful with the Bicentennial bags. I dare say the majority of them were filled by jobbers long after 1976 and they do not contain the same array of marbles as originally packaged by Champion. I think the originals have Peltier marbles in them but the back-fills do not. Any Champion Old Fashioned marbles also indicate the bag is back-filled.

[akroorka]

I have not been sitting on my hands regarding this post. I have spent a lot of time doing research on various fronts with little to add.

I would like to give a shout out to “Stephs Study Hall” I was distracted so many times by the info in these posts that all of you have contributed to. Once again—Great job Steph!!!

I broke out my “like kind” boxes without the added ink for any help that it may add.

I know this type of box could have been backfilled—I have unfilled flats myself after all. One or two may hold some credence however.

First box—obviously game marbles—10 of each and 1/2” to 9/16 ”. Could the “Victory’s” be game marbles??? Lots of “Victory Games” or WW2 games are out there that use marbles. No reason to think that this box was backfilled by anyone.

Second box—well, an obvious mix of makers. Previously opened and contaminated IMHO

Third box – it’s a “fresh box” --Hmmmm, pretty clearly the same as “Victory Box” without the ink.

Fourth box— it’s a “fresh box” ----green and white—sure look like MK to me.

Fifth box— it’s a “fresh box” ---well I can’t call what it holds for sure. Pre-jabo’s maybe—maybe—“classics”.

[akroorka]

18 hours ago, PittsburghMarbles said:

I had to run upstairs to look, here's some of the 1960s or so Champions I bought from him 2 weeks ago. And all of the mibs in that giant bucket of mibs were marbles he purchased from Champion Agate in the late 60's. 

Untitled by Pittsburgh Marbles, on Flickr

Untitled by Pittsburgh Marbles, on Flickr

 

I dont know though, they look a tad bit different than yours posted perhaps but not really. I'd go with Champion but I guess yours could be vitros or Akros too ugh, sometimes patches are so freakin ridiculous. 

Thanks Pittsburgh, I think that they are a match for the ones in my OG post. Anymore that you could add will be appreciated for sure.

Marble--On!!

[Ric]

Charlie Stutsman was the source of many a back-filled Bicentennial bag and "Star Box". It would not surprise me if he had a hand in these too. He was very prolific! You can check out some of his paperwork here.

[Ric]

59 minutes ago, akroorka said:

First box—obviously game marbles—10 of each and 1/2” to 9/16 ”. Could the “Victory’s” be game marbles??? Lots of “Victory Games” or WW2 games are out there that use marbles. No reason to think that this box was backfilled by anyone.

Second box—well, an obvious mix of makers. Previously opened and contaminated IMHO

Third box – it’s a “fresh box” --Hmmmm, pretty clearly the same as “Victory Box” without the ink.

Fourth box— it’s a “fresh box” ----green and white—sure look like MK to me.

Fifth box— it’s a “fresh box” ---well I can’t call what it holds for sure. Pre-jabo’s maybe—maybe—“classics”.

I think boxes 3-4 are Marble King overruns or seconds that some Jobber purchased and filled the boxes with. Box 5 is undoubtedly JABO Classics - the marbles appear to be from the 1996-97 time frame.

[Al Oregon]

For reference, here is one of the Champion Bicentennial bags that probably fits in the "filled" category.  Very similar marbles.

 

[Ric]

42 minutes ago, Al Oregon said:

For reference, here is one of the Champion Bicentennial bags that probably fits in the "filled" category.  Very similar marbles.

Thanks Al, I have nine of these bags, none with a single type of marble, or any with even one marble like yours or the OPs, and I do not think any of them were filled by Champion for the bicentennial in 1976. (I'll try to come back with pics a bit later).

Have you ever seen an original bag filled by Champion? I don't think I have. Maybe @wvrons or someone else has an authentic one to show.

[wvrons]

Many of the Champion Bicentennial bags filled by Champion contain a mix of different companies marbles. They contained marbles from Champion, Vitro, Marble King, Ravenswood, Jackson, and Master. Some had less of a mix with different companies. Not many had the Jacksons. But most all filled by Champion had some of their own marbles plus Vitro, Marble King the more dull or flat white, red and blue Ravenswoods, One man at Salem WV east of the Champion factory had probably at least 1000-2000 of these bags. Not that long ago Dave A. in VA got a few rolls of the empty bags, several hundred. So even the emtpy bags are still being spread and likely filled by anyone.  Dave A. also got a few boxes of the filled bags, not long ago when some of the last contents of Champion were sold. These Champion Bicentennial bags have always caused confusion and will continue to for many years ahead. Champion bought marbles anyplace they could get them for as cheap or cheaper than as they could produce them.  They packaged them and also sold them to jobbers. Yes Roger Hardy did buy patch type marbles from Champion. But he has never said to me that Champion made them.  Roger has for many many years sold Champion bags with Champion headers that contain the white base with red/orange blue patches.  I do no think Champion ever produced patch type marbles as normal production. I think those Roger bought from Champion were more likely produced by Vitro. I have never found any Champion employee who said they ever produced patch type marbles. Champion had a long maybe 75-100ft.  narrow maybe 16ft. white building that did set along the street and across a small creek. This was used for storage and packaging of most all the other companies marbles they had purchased for fifty years. The floor finally rotted and fell through due to the weight in the early 2000's. Tons of marbles went into the creek and have been dug over the years and confused as Champion made.  I was inside that building years ago. 

[Ric]

25 minutes ago, wvrons said:

Many of the Champion Bicentennial bags filled by Champion contain a mix of different companies marbles. They contained marbles from Champion, Vitro, Marble King, Ravenswood, Jackson, and Master. Some had less of a mix with different companies. Not many had the Jacksons. But most all filled by Champion had some of their own marbles plus Vitro, Marble King the more dull or flat white, red and blue Ravenswoods, One man at Salem WV east of the Champion factory had probably at least 1000-2000 of these bags. Not that long ago Dave A. in VA got a few rolls of the empty bags, several hundred. So even the emtpy bags are still being spread and likely filled by anyone.  Dave A. also got a few boxes of the filled bags, not long ago when some of the last contents of Champion were sold. These Champion Bicentennial bags have always caused confusion and will continue to for many years ahead. Champion bought marbles anyplace they could get them for as cheap or cheaper than as they could produce them.  They packaged them and also sold them to jobbers. Yes Roger Hardy did buy patch type marbles from Champion. But he has never said to me that Champion made them.  Roger has for many many years sold Champion bags with Champion headers that contain the white base with red/orange blue patches.  I do no think Champion ever produced patch type marbles as normal production. I think those Roger bought from Champion were more likely produced by Vitro. I have never found any Champion employee who said they ever produced patch type marbles. Champion had a long maybe 75-100ft.  narrow maybe 16ft. white building that did set along the street and across a small creek. This was used for storage and packaging of most all the other companies marbles they had purchased for fifty years. The floor finally rotted and fell through due to the weight in the early 2000's. Tons of marbles went into the creek and have been dug over the years and confused as Champion made.  I was inside that building years ago. 

Thanks a lot for this, Ron. One of the things that bothers me about the OP marbles is the orange colored patches and almost stripe-like blue patches on many of them. It just doesn't seem like Vitro quality to me. Maybe they were seconds or something, but MK did make some similar double patch marbles, didn't they? Wasn't the "Pepsi Marble" a Marble King?

Now I am going to open a bag or two so we can get a good look at the mibs. But I don't recall seeing any like the OP mibs in the bags.

[wvrons]

I agree the other possible is Marble King.  I agree there are two different ones. A white base with red/orange patch and blue patch. One with white base red ribbon and a blue patch. A patch and patch. A more of a ribbon and patch. Champion for sure bought marbles from both Vitro and Marble King. 

[Ric]

6 hours ago, Ric said:

(I'll try to come back with pics a bit later).

Here we go. This is one of eight bags I purchased in a partially filled carton, and I am betting Charlie Stutsman put them together. A lot of the marbles are fractured - probably from freeze/thaw or just getting thrown around. And many of the patches look like seconds to me. I think quality control on the bags filled by Champion was probably better than this. It looks like these were filled using the cheapest marbles available, and some of the Champion swirls look like they were made in the 80s. Charlie sold these bags for about $10 each, which must have provided a very nice profit margin.

In the bag

Out of the bag

Contents: Black Cat's Eyes

Yellow Cat's Eyes

White Cat's Eyes

Swirls

1

2

3

4

5

Patches

1

2

3

4

Game Marbles

Clearies

 

[wvrons]

I have seen a lot of the bags with this very near same or similar mix.  I have never seen a bag with nothing but Champion swirls.  Or nothing but swirls and game marbles or colored transparent clearies.  Very good chance that Stutsman bought bags and a variety of companies marbles from Champion.  

[PittsburghMarbles]

These are similar marble kings that came from a marble king dump that someone I know used to dig at in the 90s that they gave me. They probably date from the late 80s. As you can see, they aren’t the same, just similar. 

 

[akroorka]

I dug through my Akro patches today and decided to post these for those that like I, may have thought or hoped that the OP may have been Akro marbles.

As always, I am open to the opinions of the marbles that I post and the ideas that anyone may have on these marbles. I am never too old to learn nor are the masses of marble collectors, new or old that are out there that may read this post in the future years ahead.

These are Akro RWB patches IMHO. Close to the OP-- but no Cigar.

Marble---On!!!

[Ric]

1 hour ago, akroorka said:

These are Akro RWB patches IMHO. Close to the OP-- but no Cigar.

I agree, these look more like Akros than any other marbles in this thread.