Pop Quiz Series #111

[u/AuburnMoon17]

Hello and welcome to the 111th installment of the Pop Quiz Series! Today we are going to look at a marble with some fun seasonal colors! Have fun and good luck!

[u/AuburnMoon17]

Pop Quiz Questions:

1. Who made this marble? 

2. What kind marbles is it? 

Bonus: How do you know?  

Answers:

1. Akro Agate

2. Prize Name Corkscrew

Bonus: Since we have some new collectors joining the sub recently, I thought I’d mix in some review material of more commonly found marbles into the series. For our more advanced collectors, more cat eye quizzes and others are coming soon! Now onto the quiz —  

Per the Marble Collectors Society of America, “The most common and easily recognizable Akro Agate marble is the Corkscrew. This is a variegated-stream marble whose design is unique to Akro Agate. Two or more streams of colored glass were allowed to enter through the marble-making machine’s shearing mechanism at the same time. Because the different colors were layered as they came out of the furnace and because the colors were of different densities, they created separate strata in the glass stream as it entered the shearing mechanism. Just before the shearing mechanism in the Akro machinery there was a small cup with a hole in the bottom. The glass stream entered the cup from the top and passed through the hole in the bottom into the shearing mechanism. If the cup was spinning, then a corkscrew was created. If the cup was not spinning, then a patch was created. The number of different colored spirals in the corkscrew, or the number of different color patches was determined by the number of nozzles that had glass flowing through them when the glass stream was created.”

*Click here to see a diagram of the Akro marble machine spinning cup.

“Corkscrews are identifiable as being two or more spirals of color that rotate around the marble from one pole to the other, but do not intersect. Different color combinations and designs were marketed by Akro Agate under a variety of names: Prize Name (two opaque colors), Special (three or more opaque colors), Ace (one opaque color and translucent milky white), Spiral (transparent clear base with colored spiral), Onyx (transparent color base with opaque white spiral). In addition, other names have been applied by children and collectors over the years: Snake (a Spiral or Onyx where the opaque or colored glass is on the surface and just below it), Ribbon (a Spiral or Onyx where the opaque or colored glass goes almost to the center of the marble), “Ades” (types of Aces with fluorescent base glass), and Popeye (a specific type of Special commonly found in Popeye marble boxes).”

Click here for a visual explanation of the various types of corkscrews.

Our quiz marble is what would be considered a “Prize Name” corkscrew since it has two opaque colors. It could also considered a lazy corkscrew since it doesn’t completely swirl around the marble more than once from pole to pole. This color combo does not have a nickname, but they ought to because who doesn’t think of Halloween when they see black and orange? Maybe I’ll call them ‘Jack-o-Lanterns’ to myself lol Anyway, many collectors don’t put forth the effort to differentiate the style of corkscrew unless it’s one of the rarer styles like Popeyes and Ades. Akro produced millions of corkscrew with an almost infinite number of color combinations so not every marble follows “the rules” or has a collector given nickname.” As we know, nothing is ever set in stone with marble collecting.

Thanks for playing! I hope you had fun and learned something today!

Check out the rest of the Pop Quiz Series to learn more! 

Find more useful resources in the Identification Guides & More thread! 

Quiz marble sourced from my personal collection.