Duck Marbles from the Seike family

[shiroaiko]

13 hours ago, akroorka said:

Sad stuff shiroaiko, sad stuff for sure.

Get back on that torch horse and---

Marble--On!!

Hi akroorka, thanks for the message! If it didn't happen to me, I would not be able to be here! I hope I can catch the horse some time in my future!

[shiroaiko]

I took pictures of yellow ribbons that were forgotten. The clear window part is so small...almost diminishing. I'm not sure if they can be called a marble with a window.

The white is a kind of contaminated color. For comparison, I put one white marble beside them on the dish.

[shiroaiko]

A blue swirl. 

The same shades of blue, the light and dark. Orange swirls follow. 

In 1936, Seike invented a device for making machine-made swirls. The utility model Showa12 (1937) No.13819 "Glass Sphere Forming Device" was filed on November 13, 1936, and officially published in September of the following year.

[davesnothere]

Do you have any examples of the earlier runs 1930s 1940s. I have a jar full of clear older mibs that fall into this style. 

The quality wasn't as good lots of bubbles dirty batch glass etc.

 

[shiroaiko]

On 4/1/2025 at 11:05 PM, davesnothere said:

Do you have any examples of the earlier runs 1930s 1940s. I have a jar full of clear older mibs that fall into this style. 

The quality wasn't as good lots of bubbles dirty batch glass etc.

 

Sorry that my reply is late. My husband came back home earlier than the schedule (or I forgot what he told me). I've been busy since yesterday.

Seike's pre-war marbles were of better quality in terms of color and bubbles. His product maintained quality until 1943. Keeping the quality became difficult after 1944, due to material shortage, and the real testament came after the war when at least a few marble makers came back to operation in 1946 summer. The result was a mix of good and bad marbles, because you cannot stop the operation even if shortage happens. The table below shows the volume of marble production, measured in tons. Source: History of the Japanese Glass Industry by Shigemasa Sugie, 1950."  The Nippon Special Glass Ball Mfg. Inc. (Seike, Nakanishi and Yanagawa) was the only one business which was officially approved making marbles during ww2. In 1950 the number reached 900 tons. 

You said "this style". Did you mean swirls? I believe I've found most of Naoyuki Seike's patents in prewar time. Are you interested in what marbles those patents make? 

[davesnothere]

@shiroaiko yes I'm very interested in the prewar production types .were they the same construction. 

Canada imported toys from Asia prewar.

We never made anything decent no glass,tin etc just wood at that time.

[shiroaiko]

@davesnothere I'm happy to post the pics of his prewar marbles with corresponding patents. Please wait for tomorrow. What I have for today are clearies, the last ones from the family's lot. 

[stephenb]

Thank you for sharing all of these stories and marbles Shiroaiko! Fascinating to see !

[akroorka]

5 hours ago, stephenb said:

Thank you for sharing all of these stories and marbles Shiroaiko! Fascinating to see !

Is a trip to Japan in the future?

Marble--On!!

[shiroaiko]

21 hours ago, stephenb said:

Thank you for sharing all of these stories and marbles Shiroaiko! Fascinating to see !

You are welcome! I am thankful for what you have been doing too. I saw your cat's eye video years ago, and that encouraged me to speak out in a marble community. There is much information on marble history our libraries and patent office accumulated. I also visited Osaka for the fieldwork. I'm here to share what I have learned with people.

[shiroaiko]

These are marble utility model patents Naoyuki Seike had ideas of during August to November 1930. The first one makes (machine-made) ribbon marbles with 3 stripes. The second is about making half and half marbles. The last is the improved version of the second, where the amount of glass which goes through from outlet is controlled by compressed air in a separated manner. 

 

My time is up for today. Marble photos continue tomorrow. 

[davesnothere]

@shiroaiko Ahh you rock!

Exactly what I needed to see.

I have some of these they sure stump everyone especially with another color and some pocket wear.

The transparent glass is very interesting it has a crystal quality if that's the correct explanation. 

Thank you for taking the time to share this information 🙏 

[shiroaiko]

@davesnothere Do you think Seike's early glass is made of crystal glass? What I know is Seike made his own glass in his factory. He also designed nearly all the equipment needed for making marbles. His glass furnace made a big contribution to the glass industry. He allowed manufacturers to produce it without asking for royalties, which helped spread the use of the glass-melting furnace he designed.

For today my photos are half and half marbles and its variations. 

 

This type of marbles appears to be in a combination of alabaster white and a transparent color. 

Seike's green sometimes has dark green bits, and half & half's are not the exception. 

I'm not sure if this is intentional, but I have many examples whose white is split or wispy.

These are similar looking marbles but the white part doesn't become thick like filling half of the matrix. They are one type of submerged ribbon marbles. 

Back to the half & halfs, the color part can be wispy sometimes. 

If the gob becomes long, it becomes folded in half, making itself a buttcrack. The one on the right might not be the best example, but it came from a lot which includes lots of pre-war types of Seike marbles including half & halfs. 

 

 

 

 

[davesnothere]

@shiroaiko very nice photos. I do have most of these as well . I like the half and halfs the colors are quiet nice.

I'm no expert on the glass content .

I find the dark reds and orange to have a crackle effect and the glass is very brittle also it's more vibrant( not recycled) then american glass.

You could probably explain this better then me.

 

I do have a cool boulder in orange and white with drizzle I'm assuming just a machine error. 

[shiroaiko]

@davesnothere  Good to hear that you got these marbles and I see what you mean. Talking about the toughness, you are probably right in saying old Japanese glass is softer. I remember when I got my first American marbles from premier makers on my palm, they looked amazingly beautiful as if they were freshly sent from a factory. I could tell they were hard and tough. About colors, it seems both crystal glass and soda lime glass can have bright colors. I just checked Satake home page to refresh my memory. The colors indicated by a star are soda-lime glass, others are lead crystal. Glass on the 4th sample board is the latest varieties of non-lead crystal, which were not available when I worked. I had an impression that vivid colors were for soda-lime and softer and cooler tones for lead crystal, but now it has been changed. So we cannot tell the glass types from the color? We need specialists.

[shiroaiko]

This is a page from my marble book which features an original package of mushroom marbles. It doesn't provide the maker's name, just saying "made in Japan", but from the glass and configuration of the marbles, I identify them as Seike's.  

The dark amber is the only one that I own for this type. It has a faint orange line on the upper side of the white patches. 

My SNS friend (@kingbee1969 at Instagram) has at least 3 mushrooms, including ones of rarer colors. 

All the other marbles in my collection got a skinnier proportion for the stalk part of mushrooms, or...

the white patches are wispy.

Or somewhat opposite in the use of transparent/opaque colors. 

If you take a close look at the marbles in the puzzle boxes, some might notice two of the marbles got a light orange shade on the white patches. 

When I first saw these marbles, I assumed the orange tint was due to color contamination. But after coming across other examples, I came to understand that it was part of Seike's intentional design. 

 

[davesnothere]

@shiroaiko I can talk about these all day. So many colors and patterns some can be really fun.

I have one of the green/ yellow that's circled its very cool.

I have quite a few of the mushrooms I love em.

Now the whispey ones you say are intentional , I agree 100% with this .

This gets interesting.

Early marble competitions banned glass so sneaky boys and girls painted glass mibs to look like painted clays and they were more valuable for trading. 

Here's the fun part,  I search for these and clean off the paint they hold some interesting secrets. 

The last batch I found had 12 fiquire 8s all mint with the odd color red you mention and one red base with the whispey white and beige patch.

Too me this is proof enough the fiquire eights fell into this maker.

Now I think these 8s are the earliest and I almost certain are were the Asian transitionals came from.

The colors are a good match even the red lines up to a the few I have in the machine mades.

The textures and general feel really make me think the transitionals need more research to confirm seikes involment at least its a direction. 

And I believe I may have some opaque 2 seam patch with drop into the machine made 8s, now these are very rare and probably have been attributed to later Taiwan made imo.

I'll put up some photos this week maybe we get some open thoughts .

Cheers Dave 

 

[akroorka]

4 hours ago, davesnothere said:

Early marble competitions banned glass so sneaky boys and girls painted glass mibs to look like painted clays and they were more valuable for trading. 

Here's the fun part,  I search for these and clean off the paint they hold some interesting secrets. 

This a first for me.

I do not doubt it one bit--

Nice stuff Dave!

Marble--On!!

[shiroaiko]

@davesnothere The story of painted marbles is first for me too. I'm interested in your marbles, and I look forward to reading your thread. 😃

You are right that Seike made figure 8s. Early ones use a color combination same as transitionals. I think when he started experiments on white ribbons, they were in alabaster white and the number of stripes was 3. The glass was harder than the transparent base glass, resulting in a strange look. I personally call them 小 (pronounces like "show") marbles. The Chinese character means small. 

 

Later he switched the alabaster white to opaque white, which had a lower melting temperature than the base glass. The opaque white spreads well on the surface. Although the color blotches on the surface, the marbles look better than the previous version with alabaster white. Something interesting is Seike mixed white powder with opaque white. This was done probably on purpose. 

 

[davesnothere]

4 hours ago, shiroaiko said:

@davesnothere The story of painted marbles is first for me too. 

I think my painted marbles is a Canadian thing I've only found them in the oldest of lots. Mostly dirt farmers here at the beginning of the century no money and definitely no toys Mostly homemade.

I come across mud marbles all the time some people say indigenous,  I don't know I usually pass them up .

You can believe it or not I'm just the storyteller it's been told me now I passed it on .

I'll get to work on sharing some of the more exotic seikes and my mystery patches tomorrow. 

Is it OK to post them in this thread? 

You take such good images I hate to clutter it up ☺️

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[shiroaiko]

@davesnothere please post your pictures here! I am happy people come and join the thread! 

 

This afternoon I came across to an interesting Instagram post. 😃

@eyes_of_stone_beachcombing has a handful of beachcombing finds on her palm. The white-base purple patch on her thumb appears to the same Seike type I just prepared for posting today. I hadn't seen purple ones. This kind of coincidence makes me excited. Below are the two examples I took photos of in the morning. 

The idea is the same as beige/orange tint marbles. A color on a color. 

It's also fun to see how different the two types of red behave on white glass. The semi-opaque red tends to spread and bleed on the surface, while the opaque red settles in just right—indicating that the red and white have closer melting points.

 

 

 

[shiroaiko]

I also took other photos this morning. They are patch/ribbon types in variations. 

 

The right two are clear-base marbles. 

(Please just ignore the orange marble on the far right. )

4 with clear part. 1 without clear. 

 

Marbles with 3 ribbons. In one example one of the stripes goes under the white. 

[davesnothere]

@shiroaiko very nice.

Here's a quick gathering of mine.

The last photo shows some oddballs I'm not sure on . Two hand gathered on the right. The left looks MK but it fits the early Seike 2 seam style.

Have a look see what you think.

Threw in some peewees also not sure image 6

[davesnothere]

I hope everyone is watching this thread 🤓

The info @shiroaiko is providing is exceptional!

 

Found my dark amber mushroom.  My favorite 😍 

[shiroaiko]

@davesnothere Thank you for taking so many photos! I looked at them closely, and most of them gave me a Seike impression. I don’t mean I’ve seen all of them before, but I understand why you identify them as Seikes.

The ribbon marbles in these 4 pictures are siblings. We see bleeding ribbons in opaque white, while a couple of greens on the right got alabaster stripes. I also see white bits in the ribbons, and dark green bits in transparent green. They are Seike traits. The bicolor matrix for sky blue marbles can be on purpose, because I see bicolor examples for ribbon marbles from time to time. The marbles below are submerged ribbon marbles which sometimes look like pseudo-cat's eyes. 

 

Although I haven't seen these before, traits like two patches and the mixing of colors tell me they are highly likely to be Seike's. Wispy marbles are fun when they are viewed from various angles. How I wish if I could rotate them on my palm. 🫧✨

 

Do you think veneer type marbles are post war production? The marbles below are a local find. In my country there is one big collector of old Japanese glassware who is also interested in marbles. Many old  marbles go straight to him because antique dealers help to build his collection. In recent years he started to supply (small?) numbers of glass toys to the antique market. These marbles are from his previous collection, bought from a shop in Tokyo. 

 

The green patch on the left is nice! I like it a lot!

 

 

I am happy to see mushrooms! 😃

I wonder if I can identify the two color patch (the far right) as Seike, if it is mixed with patch marbles from other makers. I still cannot figure out the dark color... is it purple or black?...I thought I had purple and black examples somewhere and I found purple and brown. I think brown is rare.

 

 

The multicolor ribbons got interesting color combinations! Do they belong to the same lot? 

 

Interesting that the rare color mushroom has a hint of another color on the yellow. I thought the color combination of yours matches the one of my Insta friend, but yours got darker green. Is there a faint line/tint on the yellow for both? 

You have a three color patch... mines are somewhat bolder. Possibly postwar production. 

The orange is especially intense in the middle marble. Is it a transparent color?

 

 

The 3 color patch is very nice! 🥰

Orange transitionals must be pretty rare… I only have one, and even that one is ambiguous. I always wonder whether it’s a transitional or a swirl. At the moment, I’m thinking it’s more of a swirl, since I can't find a pontil.

 

Seike's transitionals got a crease pontil. @Joe2 kindly offered me to purchase the puzzle box last year. Later I found another set which houses Japanese bisque dolls at Etsy (already sold out). The dolls were originally owned by an elderly English lady. 

 

Edited 13 hours ago by shiroaiko
One photo removed.