Vacor De Mexico Marbles

Vacor De Mexico, today known as Glasfirma International, is a Mexican company that dominates the world market in high quality toy glass marbles. The company began making clay marbles in 1930, clear glass marbles in 1934, and according to the old MegaFun website, produced cat's eyes in 1944. Beginning in 1964, the company began to sell internationally. Most of their early marbles were inferior quality and not easily confused with US vintage types. It was not until the 1990s that their marble quality improved and were sold widely in the US through Toys-R-Us. In 1998, a new US distributor, Mega Marble began widely selling vibrant colorful marbles in mesh bags, bright packaging, with marbles designs and production runs given their own name. This marketing approach was highly successful, and Mega Marble dominated quality toy marble sales. From 2005-2013, Fabricas selectas distributed Vacor marbles, with the US division rebranded Mega Fun (2014-2018). Play Visions is the current US distributor of Vacor marbles as Mega Marble, introducing new designs and names, and discontinuing others.

In the 1990s and 2000s, a concern to vintage marble collectors was that some patterns of Vacor Mega Marble brand had a similar appearance to highly collectible vintage and antique marbles and were sometimes sold by unscrupulous sellers as old. Generally, these Vacor marbles could be distinguished from vintage US marbles by the orange peel texture on the surface of the marble visible under magnification, as well as their more modern colors. Mega Marble also introduced frosted and iridescent versions of many patterns, and these designs never existed in vintage marbles.

While initially Vacor Mega Marble were not of interest to vintage marble collectors in the US, over time, modern collectors began to appreciate that not only were the Vacor Mega Marble both beautiful and collectible in their own right, but they realized that some of the early designs had been discontinued for years and were now hard to find. Today on sites like Ebay, certain Mega Marble designs, like the Michelangelo, now rival many vintage marbles designs in value.

According to various websites or our experience, the following marbles have been retired: Agate or Candy Stripe (1998-2002), Arctic Bear (2001, frosted), Asteroid (2009-2015), Banana Swirl (2000-2003), Bear (2008-2013; rebranded triceratops and Reissued 2017 and 2019), Black Panther (1993-2018), Blueberry Freeze (2003-2013, 2017 and 2019), Bozo (2013-2014, swirl version of the Patriot), Camouflage, Cardinal, Cleary or Crystal (late 1994-2008), Cockatoo (2004-2015), Comet (1994-2015), Cotton Candy (1998-2001), Cow (2013-2015), Cracker Jack (2000-2001), Destroyer (1996-2001, confetti on black), Fiesta (2002-2011, reissued in mixes and other packs 2014-2019), Flame (iridescent simple cat's eye, 1994-2001), Galaxy (1993-2018), Gazelle, Grasshopper (2007-2014), Green Parrot (1998-2003), Halloween (2002-2004), Horse (2013-2015), Hurricane (1999-2010, reissues with other distributors as nymph or hurricane 2015-2019), Iguana (2004-2013), Katydid (2007-2008), Liberty (2001-2009), Macaw (sometimes called Blue Parrot is Peltier Tricolor look-a-like, 1998-2001), Michelangelo (2000-2010), Neptune (1998-2018), Old Fashion (vintage swirl look-a-likes, 1996-2003), Patriot (1998-2004), Raven (2003-2010, but some reissues), Red Baron (red Old Fashion; 1997-1999), Red Devil (1993-2012, but reissues), Scorpion (red and black swirl, 1996-1999), Spaghetti also called Streamers (1995-2009), Sunflower (2002-2008, but reissues), Super Crystal Cat's Eye (1993-2003), Swamp Thing (2012-2014), Tidal Wave (1997-2011), T-Rex, Turtle (2000-2001), Vampire (2012-2014), Venus Flytrap (2011-2012), Volcano (1999-2012), Werewolf (2012-2014), Wicked Owl (1999-2013), and Zombie (2012-2014).

Some marbles have been renamed over time or names recycled, remainders added to later mixed bags, some new marbles with similar appearance to old marbles have been introduced with new names, and sometimes earlier productions of a given design may have been made with a somewhat different appearance. Some designs were only sold in the US, while other designs were only available in Europe or Mexico. As of 2023, since the 1990's there have been more than 240 named designs issued by distributors in Mexico, the US, and Europe, but only 50 of these are currently sold by the US distributor.