Duck Marbles from the Seike family

[YasudaCollector]

Congratulations Aiko! That's awesome! 😃😎🥳

[shiroaiko]

Thank you, Aidan! For the preparation I wrote a paper on my life regarding marbles and got ready for the appointment.😃 🫧✨

[thaservices]

On 8/7/2025 at 6:35 PM, shiroaiko said:

@thaservices Right after my last post I received an email from a newspaper company from Tokyo. They are interested in my marble research because there are very few people who do researching the history of marbles. They are planning to visit me to Yamagata ( 3 hours by super express) next Tuesday. I need to be prepared for that. I'll start working on the Hosoi article after the visit. I ask you for patience. 🙏

Congrats on the upcoming interview!😀 

[shiroaiko]

@thaservices Thank you! I'm working on the translation now, and I'll let you know the title of the new thread once I'm ready to post it. We're in the middle of Bon holidays in Japan, and Bon actually appears in the text. In older times there were only two big holidays in a year... New Year and Bon, which lasted for about a week. 

[shiroaiko]

 

@thaservices I’ve finally finished the translation I promised—thank you for waiting. Please take a look when you have some time:

 

This is a sensitive topic, so even though I always felt I should get it done, I kept putting it off. I appreciate the opportunity you gave me to finally work on it.

I still have several other documents I’d like to translate, including: an analysis of the U.S. marble market, Yasuda’s technology exports, two patents for cat's eye marbles by Isogami, and Seike’s wirepull patent.

 

[Alta]

Thank you for this amazing post. It helped me identify this recent acquisition and I will try to remember to take a look in here when I get lots that appear to have a fair number of Japanese marbles, as I am sure I will still get a fair number of these Duck marbles. 

I will be digging into my cats eyes soon to see if I can ID some of those... 

[MaxxNaoyukiYamasaki]

Hello! I'm so so excited to find this post and see your research and others talking about it. Naoyuki Seike is actually my Great Grandfather! If you'd like would be very happy to put you in contact with my father and he can maybe share more information with you. Naoyuki's Daughter (and my grandmother), Junko followed in his inventor path and also worked for Zojirushi and had many patents related to cooking and food science.  

[akroorka]

11 hours ago, MaxxNaoyukiYamasaki said:

Hello!

You keep coming back with your info, I just love this stuff--just love it!
Marble-- On !!

[Chad G.]

17 hours ago, MaxxNaoyukiYamasaki said:

Hello! I'm so so excited to find this post and see your research and others talking about it. Naoyuki Seike is actually my Great Grandfather! If you'd like would be very happy to put you in contact with my father and he can maybe share more information with you. Naoyuki's Daughter (and my grandmother), Junko followed in his inventor path and also worked for Zojirushi and had many patents related to cooking and food science.  

@shiroaiko  will be anxious to have a talk with you, another link in the chain is being filled.

[shiroaiko]

Hello @MaxxNaoyukiYamasaki,

Thank you so much for your message. I am so thrilled to read it! May I ask, was it the Asahi shimbun article that led you to this forum?

Naoyuki Seike being your great grand father is especially meaningful to me, as he was one of the most important figures on my research on the Japanese marbles.  

I would be very honored to be put in contact with your father. Any information, memories or documents you might be willing to share would be invaluable to preserving the history more accurately. 

I was also fascinated about your grand mother Junko and her work at Zojirushi. It is wonderful to learn an inventive spirit continued thru generations. 

I'm planning to visit Osaka later this month. If you or your family are in the area, I'd love to see if we could find some time to talk to.

Again, thank you so much for reaching out. I truly appreciate it more than I can say. 

Best Wishes,

Aiko