1939-11 Japanese "Camera" magazine featuring a Stripey Cats photo

[shiroaiko]

This is a Japanese magazine for photography, "Camera", November issue 1939. 

It features a photograph being entitled "Marbles" by Kan-ichi Hashimoto. 

The description below the photo reads " Late March, Tesser f/4.5, aperture f/11, Pan-F, 1/10sec, Yae FS paper, MQ developer, "Marbles"  Kan-ichi Hashimoto, (1st exhibition of the Amateur Photography Federation of Tokyo Department Store/s)".

We see Stripeys, cat's eyes and a few dark looking marbles on the palms. 

https://dl.ndl.go.jp/ja/pid/1501861/1/41?keyword=びー玉　橋本

 

[Ric]

This is a great addition to the archive, Aiko - maybe the earliest photo of Cat's Eye marbles I have seen.

[shiroaiko]

 It would be the earliest photo of cat's eye marbles... The search word "びー玉" or marble/s at NDL digital service brought me to the find this morning. 

 

[Steph]

Wow.  Way to nail down a date.   Gorgeous pictures too.  

[shiroaiko]

Just to review the timeline of the patents related to cat’s eye marbles:

• Seike submitted his utility model application related to cat’s eyes on March 3, 1938.

• Isogami followed to submit his own utility model focused specifically on cat's eyes on March 11.

• Later, on May 25, Isogami filed a design registration for the same type—most likely an attempt to prevent Seike from making marbles similar to his own.

• And by March of the following year, Seike’s “stripey” type marbles were already on the domestic market, and a photo documenting them was taken by Kan-ichi Hashimoto.

As for the photo itself—I believe it was taken because the photographer was moved by the beauty of these marbles resting in the hands of a hardworking person. 

 

[Steph]

Thank you.   I never would have guessed the stripeys were so early.  Winnie said that she had a for sure pre-WWII box of marbles with them, but still I couldn't wrap my head around it.  These days my memory is not serving me very well but I will try to make a place for this. 

[shiroaiko]

Steph, it is the first time for me to hear about the Winnie's thoughts. It’s encouraging when someone like Winnie had examples to support it. Her prewar box helps to give more weight to the idea that stripeys were already being made before the war. 

This is a prewar box of glass toys, including stripeys. A local find. Collectors refer to this type of box as a Giya-bako, which means “diamond box.” The word giyaman is an old Japanese term that originally meant “diamond,” but later came to refer to glass. Since all the other toys in and around the box are believed to be prewar-made, the stripeys are most likely from the same period.

I am the current owner of the box. I took better photos this morning but the photo library on my computer does not refresh. I will post photos later. 

[shiroaiko]

My glass toy box (12 × 15 cm) has 10 cat's eyes. 9 are Stripeys. 

The 7 marbles which I could count 4 vanes. 15-17.6 mm.

One got a fat vane which almost fills half of the marble.

Mamekeri flat marbles. The yellow ones are about 26mm across, 8 mm thick.

Mamekeri and ohajiki with numbers. Mamekeri are bigger than ohajiki. 30-18mm. 

Ohajiki with paper rock scissor designs and a flower. The green measures 21 mm. 

Other glass toys that I don't regard as original to the box. They are believed to be even earlier in the production time.

[YasudaCollector]

Awesome find! 😃 It's incredible that cat's eyes were produced so early. When I first started collecting, everyone (at least in the US) thought that cat's eyes were invented in 1949. This new information pushes that date back by a whole 10 years. I wonder if these prewar cat's eyes were exported to the US? It would be interested to see if any turn up in antique shops. 

[Ric]

@shiroaiko That is a precious little box of toys - what a great find!

The rock-paper-scissors pieces are really neat. I find it interesting that the pieces have Arabic numerals on them and that the rock-paper-scissors pieces are included. Do you think these boxes were made primarily for export? Was rock-papers-scissors a popular game with Japanese children? Do you find similar glass mamekeri or ohajiki with kanji on them?

Sorry for so many questions. 🙂 I find this all very interesting. Thank you for sharing it with us!

 

 

[shiroaiko]

On 6/25/2025 at 2:16 AM, YasudaCollector said:

Awesome find! 😃 It's incredible that cat's eyes were produced so early. When I first started collecting, everyone (at least in the US) thought that cat's eyes were invented in 1949. This new information pushes that date back by a whole 10 years. I wonder if these prewar cat's eyes were exported to the US? It would be interested to see if any turn up in antique shops. 

I have Robert Block's ”Marbles”, where it says on page 130: “Marble making was one of the industries introduced to Japan as part of post–World War II reconstruction.”
Most readers in the U.S. probably accepted that as a fact, and I suppose Mr. Block had his own reasons for saying so. 

What I'm curious about is what kind of historical documents or sources about Japanese marble production were available in the U.S. over the years. That would help explain how such ideas were formed. 

[shiroaiko]

 

@Ric I'm glad you found the little box interesting!

These ohajiki and ishikeri were primarily made for the domestic market, which is why there’s very little documentation about them. This is in contrast to marbles, which were exported around the world—so while the records are still limited, at least some survive. In comparison, the ohajiki industry was much smaller than that of marble making. I’ve only found one patent document so far, likely because the production methods were quite simple.

That said, before the war, Japan aimed to build an empire across Asia, including in places like Manchuria and other regions where Japanese communities lived. These kinds of toys, along with marbles, were shipped to children in those overseas communities.

As for rock-paper-scissors—we call it “janken” in Japanese. It’s still very common for both children and adults, though I honestly don’t know its exact origin. There's historical document from around 1907 that molded glass ohajiki were popular among small children in areas like Nagoya and Gifu.

Some of these pieces even feature Chinese characters: 石 (rock), 紙 (paper), and 鋏 (scissors)—but they are quite rare. Here is a reel made by ichijinnokaze2020 regarding rock paper scissors ohajiki.

You also mentioned the Arabic numeral. We sometimes see numbers or even alphabet letters on these glass pieces. I've personally seen many with A, B, C, D, and E, but not the full alphabet. Letters like R and others are much less common, so I suspect there were production imbalances. 

Also, regarding the giya-bako box: all the examples I know of were made for the domestic market. These boxes began appearing in the Meiji era, when glass started to be mass-produced. I suspect glass boxes are not suitable for export. They're vulnerable to long journeys and the weight of other boxes if packed together.

I have an Instagram friend I sometimes talk to via PM. Below are some of the ohajiki collection of umelandinsta, including giya-bako boxes.