Vintage 1950s Cats Eye Marbles 🔮 Unopened Pack of 10 Classic Beauties

Remember Cat's Eye Marbles? Vintage Cats Eye Marbles, Unopened Pack of 10

Size: 4" x 3 1/2"

🔮 An unopened package of cat's eye marbles, 4" x 3 1/2", each package containing 10 cats eye marbles of various colors, still sealed in the clear bag under its folded, stapled header card. The header is a bright blue with MARBLES in red, a big red-and-yellow sun in the middle ringed by striped marbles, and Made in Taiwan in the corner. Inside, clear glass marbles with the swirled vanes in them, yellow, blue, orange, green and white. Each pack is filled a little differently, so the color mix varies.

🐱 How the cat's eye came to America

The modern cat's eye, a clear glass marble with a colored vane twisted through the middle like the slit of a cat's pupil, was first made in Japan around 1949, and by the early 1950s they were pouring into America. Cheap and beautiful, the Asian-made cat's eyes flooded the toy market in the 1950s, and from then until the late 1960s they were some of the most popular marbles kids ever shot, sold by the bag at dime stores and drugstores just like this one. Factories across Asia and in Mexico took up the style; today Vacor de Mexico, founded in 1934, makes most of the world's marbles.

Marbles even gave us a couple of sayings. The story goes that "playing for keeps" comes straight from the schoolyard ring, where a win meant you kept your opponent's marbles, and "losing your marbles" was the worst thing that could happen to a kid with a bag like this one.

Perfect for display in the bag, a gift for a marble collector, or for anyone brave enough to break the seal and play a game of ringer.