Early Japanese marbles

[aussie]

@shiroaiko

Hi Aiko,

I don't remember anything about Japanese marbles older than the Transitionals (1920s?) Were there fully handmades similar to the Greiner from mid 1800s. When did Japan start exporting any type of products around the world?

Cheers, Jim

[shiroaiko]

Hi Jim, thanks for your question!

Naoyuki Seike began marble production in 1924 (Taishō 13) when he started his marble factory in Hanaten, Osaka. His method was a Western-style process: hand-gathered glass that was machine-rolled. In that sense, his marbles were technically similar to Western Transitionals. His pontils are thought to be spidery crease pontils. Other makers, such as Yasuda is thought to make pinch pontils, and Nakanishi made fire-polished transitionals with smoother finish on his pontils (Showa8/1933 Utility Model-18246).

Before this method, marbles were made differently in Japan. Bottle-stopper clearies and marbles with pattern were produced mainly by lampworking, not by furnace gathering and machine rolling. These were flame-worked products.

The first successful production of marble stoppers for bottles in Japan dates back to 1892 (Meiji 25). This was achieved by Tamakichi Tokunaga, the owner of a bottle factory in Osaka. After about five years of experimentation, he succeeded, but he died suddenly, and the work was later taken over by his four sons.

One of them, YoshijiroTokunaga, filed a patent in 1910 (Registered Utility Model No. 17091) titled “Jewel/Bead/Marble Manufacturing Furnace.” Despite the word “kamado/furnace,” the illustration shows a cover designed to shield a burner flame to improve efficiency, again pointing to lampworking rather than a Western furnace-based hot work process.

Among Japanese glass toy collectors, the earliest marbles are commonly known as heso-dama (“navel marbles”).

In this method, artisans first made a glass stringer. A small amount of softened glass was then heated and wound around the stringer tip about 2–3 mm from the end. Once a roughly spherical marble shape was formed, the stringer was snap-cut very close to its base. The flat snap-cut mark is what we call the heso (“navel”).

Because a stringer is thin, it cannot withstand the massive heat of a glass furnace, so it can be only used for lampworking.
This same stringer-based technique can be seen not only in early marbles, but also in other early glass toys such as ohajiki and glass gourds netsuke. 

[aussie]

@shiroaiko Very good clear information. Thank you Aiko,