Jump to content

Veiligglas VS Hopf - information about Wirepulls


TheVacorFan

Recommended Posts

I think that it's quite important to note, that about half of my wirepull marbles came with the boxed Gibson solitaire board. I had sought this out after reading that veiligglas were the marbles that came with this particular board. I don't know what others can contribute to this, but I'm now pretty sure this information might actually be incorrect. 

I bought it on Ebay, and unfortunately don't have the original listing picture, however I do have a photo I took using it to display the wirepulls that I had at the time. When I purchased it, about 5 of the marbles had been replaced by cats. I used my existing marbles to restock it and displayed my spares around the game board. So I assume this picture must have approximately 25 of the original marbles that were supplied with the board. I hope this is useful information. 

20241213_165112_1.jpg

 

20250428_225621_1.jpg

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

It turns out these come up fairly regularly, in fact I just went on Ebay and spotted this one. Prices seem to vary, but for £10.60 including postage I couldn't resist. Ahem, it's for research purposes obviously 🙄,  and I think it definitely looks like it's stocked with what we are now discussing as potentially Hopf marbles.

Screenshot_20250428_233902_eBay.jpg

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

6 hours ago, LevvyPoole said:

It turns out these come up fairly regularly, in fact I just went on Ebay and spotted this one. Prices seem to vary, but for £10.60 including postage I couldn't resist. Ahem, it's for research purposes obviously 🙄,  and I think it definitely looks like it's stocked with what we are now discussing as potentially Hopf marbles.

Screenshot_20250428_233902_eBay.jpg

Only £10.60? Very nice score! So, you think they were made by Hopf but how do you distinguish them from Veiligglas?

  • Like 1
  • Thanks 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

2 hours ago, TheVacorFan said:

Only £10.60? Very nice score! So, you think they were made by Hopf but how do you distinguish them from Veiligglas?

I was having the most difficulty separating the ones with blue and white lines. I had thought that the Hopf ones had a gap between and less crisp edges to these lines. On closer inspection of the photos on the other thread, I now think that all my blue and white ones may be Hopf.

When sorting through all the different colours, I had started to notice @Ric description of the bubbles along the coloured lines. From here I started to spot the other similarities, and my "current" summary would be very clear base glass, more potential to be OOR and have very slight cold roll features. Also the presence of grains of something that can be seen, as mentioned on the other thread - I have one or two good examples of this. 

I'd also suggest that mine have low evidence of impact damage (maybe due to being solitaire marbles I suppose) and I don't think I've found any blow out holes yet.

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

These are mine if this size that I am currently not attributing to Hopf.

To be honest, I've never been sure that those maroon ones are Veiligglas, the grey one may be a WVS, the blue one might not be filled enough so that would actually just leave the green one...

In larger sizes I have a few more which I do think are Veiligglas. 

20250429_085610_1.jpg

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

6 hours ago, TheVacorFan said:

Only £10.60? Very nice score! So, you think they were made by Hopf but how do you distinguish them from Veiligglas?

And when this arrives, I'll make sure the marbles supplied stay with it, to try to eliminate further confusion...

I'm sure that I've seen quite a lot of individual marbles for sale on Ebay labelled as Veiligglas, with close ups showing the sparkly bubbles, that we are beginning to realise might mean something else.

I just want to add - anyone else with thoughts and opinions on this, please chime in. I am just putting mine out there for discussion. 

I do possibly think the production timings may align better for the Gibson solitaire board marbles being Hopf. I haven't spotted a definitive year of production for them, but from other info I think I remember it was stated they are from the 60s. If Veiligglas stopped making marbles in 61 and it was early to middle production years for Hopf, does this make more sense?

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
×
×
  • Create New...