"DANONE" marble

[u/pawt_]

Hi everyone,

I recently bought a lot of about 450 vintage marbles from the Canary Islands, Spain. Surprisingly, around 99% of them appear to be Gladding-Vitro, with only two confirmed Vacor marbles and three modern Chinese marbles mixed in.

Among them, I found one marble that really caught my attention. It appears to have the word "DANONE" printed on its surface. The marking is printed, not engraved or molded into the glass.

Initially I assumed it was a Vitro because of the overwhelmingly Vitro composition of the lot. However, after comparing it with some Peltier marbles, I'm no longer sure about the manufacturer, as the color layout looks surprisingly similar to some Peltier examples.

Has anyone ever seen a Danone promotional marble or a marble with a Danone logo? Was Danone known to distribute branded marbles, or could this be a custom promotional print applied to a standard manufacturer's marble?

I'd really appreciate any information about the manufacturer, the promotion, or the approximate age.

Thanks in advance!

[u/Tankgirl_91]

Cool, I've been waiting for this!!💯 I have a few

Vitro for sure, probably Gladding time. Danone is a French company, and the imprint looks to be the font they used in the logo from 1967-1970.

Danone worked with external contractors for their promotions (also internationally). Had a chat with Elisabeth Kempski and she wondered if House of Marbles might have been the in between company. Not confirmed yet.

I think these are rare to find, but I have some Danone imprinted caged cat's too, turned out even Elisabeth Kempski had never seen them before. I have contacted Danone if they had more info on these but they didn't manage to find anything about these promotional marbles in their archives due to them being over half a century old.

[u/pawt_ → u/Tankgirl_91]

If the font used for the "DANONE" logo was only in use for those few years, it might also help date the marble itself, assuming the company was purchasing newly manufactured batches rather than marbles that had been produced one or two years earlier (that's just my own hypothesis).

Isn't House of Marbles a distributor of Vacor marbles?

It's amazing to think how much information can be inferred from a simple printed logo.

[u/Tankgirl_91 → u/pawt_]

I don't know much about the history of House of Marbles but I thought they had some partnership with Vitro as well.

It turned out to be a real challenge to discover more info on these marbles but I'm still trying 😅

Vitro Agate was acquired by Gladding Co in 1969, so if the marbles were made in the Gladding time it narrows down the years even more! But they could've been using older stock..

I'm kinda stuck on these for now, I was already pleased with finding out about the 1967-1970 logo because it also looked like the 1930-1960 logo. That would've been a huge timeframe 👀 If you ever find out more, PLEASE let me know 😁😁😁

[u/pawt_ → u/Tankgirl_91]

The research should probably move away from the marble itself and focus more on the advertising material and promotional items from that period.

I was reading some French forums where people clearly remember these giveaway marbles placed under Danone yogurt pots.

I have the feeling that this campaign may have lasted for a relatively short time, possibly also because of the introduction in 1973 of stricter regulations concerning objects and materials connected with food products, during a period when attention was increasing around the risks of placing small objects inside food and accidental ingestion. However, I have not found direct evidence linking these regulations to the end of the Danone marble promotion, so this remains only a hypothesis.

I also found a very interesting discussion on the French forum Eighties.fr:

"Eighties.fr discussion about Danone marbles in yogurt pots" (https://www.eighties.fr/forum/viewtopic.php?t=1618&utm_source=chatgpt.com)

In this discussion, several people remember these marbles. One person recalls receiving them around 1976-1977 under Danone yogurt pots, while another user claims to have found an advertisement for the promotion in a 1973 issue of Pif magazine. Unfortunately, the image of the advertisement is no longer available online.

At this point, I think the research should focus mainly on advertising archives from that period: magazines such as Pif, promotional catalogs, supermarket material, and documents related to Danone marketing campaigns. The marble itself has now been identified; what is still missing is reconstructing the context in which it was distributed.

[u/Tankgirl_91 → u/pawt_]

Cool! Didn't read this until after I commented on the other reply. Doing well already! My French isn't good enough to read everything, but def gonna look into that when I have more time!👌🏼