Mostly Pix - Master-Made

[Steph]

Just pix, 'coz I have a bunch of 'em on my harddrive but as of this moment only one link in the Master section here.

One problem is that I don't know where all of them came from. I'll start with the ones I do know.

Dave's Shooting Star bag, along with some Tiger Eyes. (Dave, I went ahead and reposted this instead of linking to it since it sounds like you're not all that happy with how ImageShack is handling visitors.)

And here's the Sunburst box from eBay I think you were hoping someone had saved pix of. Size 2.

(It was too hard to decide what to leave out, so that's everything but the pix of the top and bottom. I've got those too if you want 'em later. )

Now here are some Meteors. I don't know whose.

More to come, but I'd better stop and see if I can upload this much at once.




10/20/2021:  Master sample box, with correct contents, from Joanne Singleton.

[Steph]

From ebay auctions.

Cat's eyes, 2 different bags, one showing the seam on the back:

No. 13 box:

Master Marble Game Set, 60 Game Marbles, Size 0:

[Steph]

I'm remembering why the pix are not labelled as to source on my hard drive. Most probably _are_ from eBay auctions from the past couple of months, because when I switched over to my smart new windows computer I found the smart new browser would not let me download entire eBay auction pages like my stupid old browser on my stupid old macintosh. I guess my stupid old browser was too stupid to read the rules and know it wasn't allowed to download documentation together with pix. So, for the last month or so I've been copying pix one by one and only going to the trouble of making a new word file for the text if I wanted to remember size descriptions for individual marbles or final auction prices or something like that.

However, some of the unlabelled pix may still be downloaded from attachments here, and may not have made it to the correctly labelled folder (the one with the matching thumbnail and accompanying text). Or I might have gotten careless in some other way on some other day. So if I have your pix and you want credit ... or you want them gone ... let me know.

Alright, I'll be back with more images soon. Gonna at least try to put the boxes in some kind of order.

[Steph]

No. 5:

Another No. 5, pix a little dark, but shows another view:

With Patches, some of which might also be called Cat's Eyes:

No. 6, Buster Brown promo:

No. 10:

No. 13, a different color of box than the No. 13 in Post #2:

Another No. 13. I think this one was described as a "white" box.

One more. An end shot. Still a little different from preceding colors.

[Steph]

Boxes at Marble Mental:

MMM Box Bonanza!!! (super nice cat's eyes)

MMM vs. MG (more cat's eyes, and opaques and clearies)

Lotsa pix. The ones denoted as Master are a Unique box, two Game Marble boxes, a box of Clearies, and I think a No. 5 box:

Ron's Marbles, Toys And Things

.

Edited July 12, 2007 by modularforms

[Steph]

... feel free to jump in anytime ...

... not that this means I'm done ...

[Steph]

No. 13 box, Popsicle-Fudgicle gift package:

No. 13 box as a Caraja Coffee promo:

Mesh bag:

Here are a couple more examples of the contents of No. 13 boxes. Ones with the Fudgicle promo on the bottom.

[Steph]

A few clearies:

And a lot more:

Contents of a similar box. (Clearer pic, but fewer cool extras, so I can't just substitute this box for that one.)

And a few more:

That's it for me ... for now ....

[orbboy]

Totally cool thread. Never have I seen so many examples of original Master Packaging before. Not sure about anyone else but I think this thread should be archived. This sort of info all in one place does not come along often.

[jlmoriarty]

Ditto. Good work Steph.

John

[Steph]

Thanks guys.

[Steph]

When I saw Ron's pix in the links in Post #5, I was confused about a couple of things! For one, I saw boxes that said Cloudy but I didn't see any Cloudies. Why? It turns out all of Ron's stock boxes said Cloudy on the end, but they had other things stamped on the top.

The thing which made me do a major double take though was the box of master-made Uniques. Here's the Marble Mental thread where I asked him about those: Ron, your unique ....

A couple of questions were left dangling at the end, but he took care of the main stuff in a fascinating way. The old storekeeper he got the boxes from still had the record of the original purchase. How cool is that.

One of the dangling questions I'll go ahead and put to you here is, are there any books which list the Unique as a Master company name?

Plus there are more pix of game marbles than the little 400 x 300 auction photos I have in Post #2 here. And I learned from one of the "game marble" pix that Master used the name Opal too.

And there's a lot more, including scans from Stan Block's Marble Mania, which is packed with original packaging

[Steph]

Some full-on views and a little more about the physical details of a box which sounds like it could be from the cache Ron found.

Alan's description:

This box measures approximately 4" wide, 8" long, and 7/8" high. It is in great condition, though there is old scotch tape on two sides of the side flaps, which extends a bit onto the bottom. The top is stamped "5--No. 2 Clearies Made in U.S.A.," though the front flap reads "50 Master Cloudy Marbles No. 2." One side flap is printed with "Manufactured by Master Marble Company Clarksburg, W. VA. U.S.A.," and the other reads "Insist on 'Marbles Made by Masters." The box contains 50 transparent marbles, all apparently mint and measuring 3/4". Twenty are blue and 30 are red; the red ones are in two distinct shades. These have the characteristic crimps of this company's marbles and therefore are original to the box, excepting the six red examples of the different shade, which appear to lack the crimps and thus may have been added later.

[MrsMopar]

This is great! And I think I finally found some matches to what I have here...the blue/white popsicle and the pale yellow/white meteor. It's a thrill to see what you have, unless my eyes are deceiving me then it's back to the drawing board...lol

[MrsMopar]

Ohhhhhh, I think I also have some of those dark red ones in Post #13..I call them black cherries...veryyyyyy kewl!

[Steph]

This is great! And I think I finally found some matches to what I have here...the blue/white popsicle and the pale yellow/white meteor. It's a thrill to see what you have, unless my eyes are deceiving me then it's back to the drawing board...lol

Wouldn't you know ... you pick out the patches. Several companies made patches. You might find some in the Akro boxes too.

A lot of the board's Akro photos were in older threads, so they're missing right now. But I hope enough remain for you to find some for comparison.

Ohhhhhh, I think I also have some of those dark red ones in Post #13..I call them black cherries...veryyyyyy kewl!

If we're talking monetary value (are we?), then clearies and solid game marbles are generally not very collectible unless they're in their original packaging. (There are some exceptions ... but it can take someone a year or more to learn to pick them out from the regular game marbles.)

That said, I love clearies. The first marbles I got as a kid was one of Champion's Bicentennial bags and it was full of clearies from ultrapeewee size to shooters. They're a very happy memory for me.

Plus I have a tray of solid colored marbles sorted by color. Every now and again I pull it out and admire all the hues.

[MrsMopar]

That's so kewl. I know I have already picked some fave's out of these that we have here. Since they all were in an old pickle jar, I separated them into my own kind of catagories. Colors and design can surely attract you to one moreso than another.

[Steph]

In some ways marbles are more fun before we learn what we are supposed to like, and just go with our feelings.

It's a different kind of fun later when you know what's what and start being able to id them by maker and grade them and know their monetary value. Something's lost and something's gained. :-)

And then I hear it's a whole different kind of fun when you can go to shows and mingle with other marble lovers. I haven't been to one yet.

[MrsMopar]

Yanno, I looked at the ones I call black cherries ( like the ones here: http://marbleconnection.com/i...st&id=14623 ) and instead of looking at them directly in the light, I had the light behind and noticed that a few had slivers of lines close to the surface and one looked like it was half clear red and half not clear almost looked black.

If I remember right, there's also a green one. Can't seem to look at that one too well..it's got a spot that soap n water didn't get out...can I use CLR? Some of these marbles got rust on them from a piece of round metal (looks like a musket ball) that was also in the jar.

[Steph]

Yanno, I looked at the ones I call black cherries ( like the ones here: http://marbleconnection.com/i...st&id=14623 ) and instead of looking at them directly in the light, I had the light behind and noticed that a few had slivers of lines close to the surface and one looked like it was half clear red and half not clear almost looked black.

If I remember right, there's also a green one. Can't seem to look at that one too well..it's got a spot that soap n water didn't get out...can I use CLR? Some of these marbles got rust on them from a piece of round metal (looks like a musket ball) that was also in the jar.

Neat. I have one which looks red, but then I noticed it was half gold, and when I looked at it through water, I noticed the red was actually coming from a balloon shaped structure inside.

I've read that some have used CLR. I don't think it will damage a clearie ... but I don't know. I've heard of some cleansers damaging the colors stripes on the marbles from some makers, but I'd guess clearies should be safe.

[Steph]

Check post #2 here for some cloudies:

Moss Agate Or Cloudy Type Marbles, Akro, Master, Peltier, Alley, who else?

for example,

(click to enlarge)

Edit 8 years later: I think those are meteors, not cloudies.

Cloudies on the left here, Meteors on the right:

Edited November 13, 2015 by Steph

[MrsMopar]

You can tell more of the detail by having marbles in water? Something new to try for me...kewllllll!

[Steph]

yup. :-)

[Steph]

No. 130 box, with cellophane top, from a Marblealan auction:

[Steph]

Sunbeam design boxes:

Seller said marble sizes were 9/16" and 3/4". From another source I gather that the dimensions may have been about 5" x 7".

. (seller)

This box is 3 1/2" by 7 3/8". The marbles are 9/16".

. (seller)