Duck Marbles from the Seike family

[shiroaiko]

@davesnothere you also got dark amber mushroom!❤️

[Ric]

@shiroaiko, @davesnothere I have really been enjoying these posts! And I will need to go through my Vitro archive after seeing some of the marbles - that is probably where I would have sorted them. 🙂

[davesnothere]

24 minutes ago, Ric said:

@shiroaiko, @davesnothere I have really been enjoying these posts! And I will need to go through my Vitro archive after seeing some of the marbles - that is probably where I would have sorted them. 🙂

I may have a vitro in the with the veneered types .

[davesnothere]

@shiroaiko @Ric here's where it gets intresting . The large opaques have come in german lots . Still undecided who's for sure

the smaller opaques came from the large group.

[Ric]

2 hours ago, davesnothere said:

here's where it gets intresting . . .

I look at the two big ones you posted and these, and I wonder . . .

[Ric]

@davesnothere I could easily see them being from the same manufacturer. I imagine if you kept the amount of color about the same and added more base to make bigger marbles mine would morph into yours.

Now I'll have to find the other variants that came with them . . .

[davesnothere]

6 minutes ago, Ric said:

@davesnothere I could easily see them being from the same manufacturer.

Now I'll have to find the other variants that came with them . . .

@Ric they do look similar.  Ill have a look on my end as well to see if I have any myself.

[Ric]

@davesnothere And you thought nobody would miss you or your marbles. 🙂 Thanks to you, I may have solved a mystery. I have wondered about these marbles since I purchased all of them together at an estate auction in Northern Kentucky about 25 years ago. I showed them around quite a bit and the consensus was always "Not Vitro, probably crazy Marble Kings" but I was never too comfortable with that ID. This is probably the surest I've ever been about them, so thanks for that! Please tell me what you know about them. Are they fairly common up there?

All these marbles were together in the same lot. I need to get them all back together again for a new photo shoot. 😄

Now if I can just find them!

 

[Ric]

@davesnothere Do I see traits reminiscent of "mushroom marbles" on some of these?

[davesnothere]

24 minutes ago, Ric said:

@davesnothere And you thought nobody would miss you or your marbles. 🙂 Thanks to you, I may have solved a mystery. I have wondered about these marbles since I purchased all of them together at an estate auction in Northern Kentucky about 25 years ago. I showed them around quite a bit and the consensus was always "Not Vitro, probably crazy Marble Kings" but I was never too comfortable with that ID. This is probably the surest I've ever been about them, so thanks for that! Please tell me what you know about them. Are they fairly common up there?

All these marbles were together in the same lot. I need to get them all back together again for a new photo shoot. 😄

 

 

 

 

Now if I can just find them!

Lol I know that feeling.

Thanks for the kind words .

Common not so much some of the later ones show up here and there.

I got lucky and found a large lot together. 

 

 

[davesnothere]

4 minutes ago, Ric said:

@davesnothere Do I see traits reminiscent of "mushroom marbles" on some of these?

Maybe a little bit. I need to gather some up and look at them in hand.

@shiroaiko definitely need a second set of eyes.

The yellow ,red ribbon patches are really nice!

[davesnothere]

@Ric I'm out of my wheelhouse with the vitro mk style.  Too many types and they all  look vitro 🤪.

I'll try to sort these, it could take a while

More questions then answers on my end. 

 

 

[shiroaiko]

Hi @davesnothere and @Ric, IDing marbles is more difficult without their historical background. My Seike marbles are either from Japan or the UK. I don't know the situation in Canada or in the US, so I'm interested in other's collection. 

The source is important. Talking about toy marbles in Japan, due to our weak currency, we didn’t buy marbles from Western countries. We supplied marbles by ourselves, so prewar marble lots in Japan basically don’t contain foreign-made pieces. If certain types of marbles are found in both UK (the largest customer of Seike) and Japan, they are highly likely Seike's because he was the dominant exporter among the Japanese marble makers. Isogami and Yasuda made a joint company to reach the countries outside Yen-bloc economy, but it was short-lived due to the war. 

Ric, your Vitro patches are bold in colors. The patches on those marbles use opaques, and the layers are thin. I see this as advanced production techniques also focused on economy.

 

By contrast, Seike’s prewar marbles often have much thicker color layers. The thickness wasn’t tightly controlled, so they weren’t economical at all. Also, Seike tended to use transparent or semi-transparent colors for these patch marbles. For these reasons, the marbles you showed don't have much of Seike feel to me. 

 

 

To my eyes, Dave's mystery two-color patch got a close color combination to the Vitros. Yet I wonder how translucent or how thick for the mystery marble. I do not own these Vitro patches myself. Please forgive me if my way of seeing is out of focus. 

 

 

I think the smaller group has some of these. 

 

 

Mines are sourced from Germany. 

For the cat's eye group, I see Seikes, but if I could see bigger images, I can say this with confidence. 

[davesnothere]

@shiroaiko I have another dark amber mushroom if you want it I can air mail it to you.

[davesnothere]

@shiroaiko I suspected the opaques as such. Thanks at least I'm getting in the ballpark with id's so hard to learn at once.

The cats I put as euro originally now I know better.

[Ric]

46 minutes ago, shiroaiko said:

Ric, your Vitro patches are bold in colors . . .

That is the challenge, Aiko - I do not think any of the marbles I show are Vitro, or even American, necessarily. I showed them to very experienced Vitro collectors here and they agreed the marbles were not Vitro.

When did Seike stop making marbles?

 

[shiroaiko]

1 hour ago, davesnothere said:

@shiroaiko I have another dark amber mushroom if you want it I can air mail it to you.

Ooh, you are kind! ❤️Thank you, but the mushroom has come to you and it is yours. I hope I can find some more in the future. 🫧✨

[shiroaiko]

@davesnothere Thank you for the detailed photos! I'm familiar with them. They are Seike's! 

[shiroaiko]

27 minutes ago, Ric said:

That is the challenge, Aiko - I do not think any of the marbles I show are Vitro, or even American, necessarily. I showed them to very experienced Vitro collectors here and they agreed the marbles were not Vitro.

When did Seike stop making marbles?

 

I'm sorry I mistook your message! 

The last entry of Seike's business was the 1959 Census. According to Reiko, he passed away in 1963.  

[davesnothere]

@shiroaiko just one last discussion .

This is where I was headed with the transitionals.

I only have the red and white fiquire 8s  to compare the glass with the transitionals. 

I'm almost convinced the transitionals are Seike. 

 

First image shows transitionals next to machine made.

@Ric I know you're interested:)

 

  

[Joe2]

possibly Japanese ⁵/8"

[davesnothere]

@Joe2 looks right to me sharp cutline , fractured glass is common on mine and the striations look right.

Uv glow is rare.

Need @shiroaiko to confirm Im still learning the glass traits.

[shiroaiko]

@Joe2, @davesnothere, thanks for showing me your marbles!🫧✨

I prepared the yellow patches, matching sets for figure 8s, transitionals, and early cat's eyes. Please have a look!

 Opaque white tends to spread and bleed on the surface.

Figure8s and submerged ribbons. 

We can see many dark green bits here in these marbles. 

Opaque white with white bits is used for the pair. 

Earlier type of cat's eyes? Other colors are dark amber and blue. 

Tatsukichi Isogami filed two cat's eye patents (utility model rights) between March and May of 1938, so based on the records, he’s considered the “father of cat’s eyes” in Japan.

IMO, Seike may have been making cat’s eyes even earlier. His ribbon marbles often got unstable ribbons. When he started making submerged ribbon marbles, he might have realized the great potential of vane-like structures inside the glass. 

Unlike Isogami, Seike's patch/ribbon type vanes are white. The part that carries color, or where he changes color, is the base glass. 

 

 

The yellow marbles are local finds. They don't glow. No fracture. Left two are not spherical. I think the intensity of yellow reflects thickness of yellow. The yellow is very soft. @Joe2, do you find them similar to yours? 

Smaller marbles are 13 mm. Bigger ones are 17 mm. 

Other Seike patches with yellow. 17 and 15 mm.

I almost forget about this. The yellow is really soft and spreads on alabaster. The ribbon looks affected by the underlying purple. This lot is from the UK. 

I hope these photos help convey the kind of yellow Seike made and used for alabaster patches.

Edited Friday at 09:45 AM by shiroaiko
I changed the word order in the second sentence.

[davesnothere]

@shiroaiko great information thank you so much!

heres a surprise. 

I never felt that this marble was german made I've made the argument that the cadmium in the orange/yellow was not a german trait.

The prewar seikes definitely share this trait. Not seeing uranium at all.

I included my cats with the same red orange for comparison. 

[davesnothere]

Gray and cold here needed.some color.I pulled out some more of the later style if I'm correct.  Glass is so perfect.