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Champion Agate Appreciation


feelnmarbleous

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I'm hoping this thread will get filled with some good info and pictures, i think the Wv Swirls go over looked and are dismissed by many due to how hard it can be to id them, thus they go in a pile and are never really sorted. If we can maybe help people understand a bit more about the Wv Swirls maybe they will be more adapt to collecting them.

What does the future hold for these Beauty's ? imho i believe we are going to see a major jump in Value and they are going to become extremely collectible in the very near future.

Please feel free to point out any mistakes or add to this as i am not 100% the dates are correct.

A little info on Champion Agate:

The company started in 1938 and ran up until 2005 or 2006 if im not mistaken, and was based in Pennsboro, West Virginia, where they produced some REALLY REALLY nice collectible swirls. You had you older swirls which where Pre- 1970 that was made with a variety of bases including Opaque, Transparent and Translucent. This was also the time the famous "Champion Corals" where produced (See pictures below).

corals.jpg

Then you had your 1970's Champion marbles, not many pretty marbles where produced in the 70's, Champion had went on to produce Game marbles, these game marbles didn't have much character or wild colors so as far as collectible they rank pretty low in my opinion, but are still collectible by the simple fact that they are Champion and Vintage.

Mid 1970's starts to roll around and we seen some "Champion Agate Bicentennial" Swirls emerging i am not certain yet on the exact year these where produced but i think this is a pretty close guess. Another marble that was made around this time was the "Champion Agate Ketchup & Mustards which if im not mistaken where produced for a Hot Wheels Promo (see picture below).

bikm.jpg

1980's

Yowzers now the 80's have arrived and Champion runs what we call a "New Old Fashion" these marbles are fairly easy to tell apart from the older Champs, the glass has a bit more sheen to it and there wasn't a lot of color combo's ran of these. This was the year we seen 3/4 sized shooters from Champion Agate (see picture below).

championz1.jpgchampionz.jpg

Around some time in the 80's they also produced "Electric Swirls" these are a bit more wild than the previous New Old Fashions, with brighter more vivid Electric colors running through them. I don't happen to have any so maybe some of you guys that do can post a few.

1990's

Aww yes, early to mid 90's my favorite years of Champion Agate production, this was the time when they made Champion Agate Furnace Marbles which are highly collectible, they was never produced for release to the public, they vary in rareness and usually, not always, have annealing fractures. There were several types of these marbles ran. They where a product of a tank wash in which they used recycled cathedral glass that they bought from the Wissmuch Glass company in Paden City, WV. (see pictures below)

furnace-1.jpg

I hope this helps even if in some small way, and please i encourage every one to participate, and even more so to share pics, i love looking at mib pics!

I'm kind of looking for what ones are Rare or HTF and what makes them unique from the other company's, i know there are several collectors here who are in to the swirls so let's see some pics of your nice, weird, htf, rare, funky, common, KILLER Champs.

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Well since know one else wants to play ill keep posting my own mibs i guess, thanks Bo, and Al, i see some killers there in that tray Al LOL

couple of the translucent types..

KillerChamps2.jpgKillerChamps3.jpg

KillerChamps8.jpgKillerChamps9.jpg

Kevin,I know very little about Champion marbles and look forward to learning more about them in this thread.Great pics,everyone.I think I may have some of those purple and caramel ones,didn't know they were Champs.Better go find them now.bo

Gotta be careful Bo, Alley made some very similar to the purples and caramel if im not mistaken...

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