I thought Atmospheres were Machine Made

[Fire1981]

Yes or no 🔥

RAR

[stephenb]

Yes , 100% born from a machine. The Mega packaging that stated that they are handmade was (while being intentional or not) false marketing.

[Shamrock Marbles]

4 hours ago, stephenb said:

Yes , 100% born from a machine. The Mega packaging that stated that they are handmade was (while being intentional or not) false marketing.

I was always under the belief that the marbles were hand-gathered and machine-rounded.

The internal glass patterns are unlike any stream-fed pattern. They also had a Guinea style with surface colors, which definitely would not be stream-fed.

The orange-peel on the glass surface is due to surface pitting on the rollers.

They used “handmade” on the bag headers. I could see how they would use that terminology, considering the process they used to gather the glass.

One could quibble over the “percentage” that the machine-rounding contributes to the final marble.

One would need to also factor in the effort to properly anneal each marble in a kiln or lehr.

Considering the retail price for bag of three was $5.99, that was a deal. I would assume wholesale price would have been 50% of retail.

 

[Fire1981]

Thanks for the information and feedback. I had no clue🔥

RAR

[Shamrock Marbles]

12 minutes ago, Fire1981 said:

Thanks for the information and feedback. I had no clue🔥

RAR

RAR,

I never saw these marbles being made. I know how I make marbles.

Would love to hear other people’s thoughts.

-John

[davesnothere]

There's going to be some upset people out there. I always wondered about these .

Probably hand selected.

I still find it hard  to believe that these were gathered at that price .

They sold them in dollar stores here back in the day.

Have fun guys see ya on the flip side.

[Shamrock Marbles]

20 minutes ago, davesnothere said:

There's going to be some upset people out there. I always wondered about these .

Probably hand selected.

I still find it hard  to believe that these were gathered at that price .

They sold them in dollar stores here back in the day.

Have fun guys see ya on the flip side.

I used to sell marbles for $1. 🙂
 

You can gather glass quickly, add color, reheat and cut in short order.

No more than a two-three minute cycle. The key is not to add too much “cold” glass.

Twenty-to-thirty marbles an hour. What did a laborer get paid per hour in Mexico back then?

Three to four guys can make 800-1,000 marbles a day (10 hour shift).

Run two shifts for a week and you have 10,000 marbles to sell.

The model is based on cheap glass, cheap fuel, cheap labor and no regulation.

[akroorka]

Handgathered and Machine rounded is the right response.

The sizes in these vary so much that it is only explained by a handgathering process

We are talking about the Toys R Us marbles here--- the 1" (give or take).

There was a special mail in offer to get two larger sizes around 2" and around 1--3/4". Vacor sizes are in "MM" (25mm for the little ones)and I am too lazy today to look them up.

These larger ones look much more refined ( I only have one of each) but Vacor was the one company that could pull it off at the time.

It seems to me that @stephenb ( respect!) was down in Mexico at the plant researching all sorts of marbles.

He may have received some wrong info here.

@Melissa has a nice collection of these--maybe she will step in with some wisdom from her collection.

Here are the three sizes that I own.

Marble--On!!

[Shamrock Marbles]

34 minutes ago, akroorka said:

Handgathered and Machine rounded is the right response.

The sizes in these vary so much that it is only explained by a handgathering process

We are talking about the Toys R Us marbles here--- the 1" (give or take).

There was a special mail in offer to get two larger sizes around 2" and around 1--3/4". Vacor sizes are in "MM" (25mm for the little ones)and I am too lazy today to look them up.

These larger ones look much more refined ( I only have one of each) but Vacor was the one company that could pull it off at the time.

It seems to me that @stephenb ( respect!) was down in Mexico at the plant researching all sorts of marbles.

He may have received some wrong info here.

@Melissa has a nice collection of these--maybe she will step in with some wisdom from her collection.

Here are the three sizes that I own.

Marble--On!!

 

14mm = 0.55 in (9/16”)

16mm = 0.63 in (5/8”)

17mm = 0.67 in (11/16”)

22mm = 0.87 in (7/8”)

25mm = 0.98 in (1”)

35mm = 1.38 in (1-3/8”)

42mm = 1.65 in (1-5/8”)

50mm = 1.97 in (2”)

[akroorka]

There were 18 varieties of these according to my paperwork.

I always suspected that the bigger ones were sold in gift shops along with the weirder stuff that I show in these images--no proof yet.

Marble--On!!

[Melissa]

They are machine made.  Stephen Bahr talked about this in his Vacor videos.