1. Two young mibsters ready to roll.
2. I had never been to this area of Ohio; there was some really pretty country and I took a bunch of pictures but unfortunately pictures taken through a dirty windshield are not that attractive.
3. 5 hours later we make it to New Philadelphia.
4. We arrive at the show. My son wanted to know what a “Buckeye” is; I’m still trying to explain. Anyone have a picture of one?



5. The Mastermind behind the event, Steve Smith. I had been told that this was possibly the largest marble show around but nothing had prepared me for what we were about to see.
6. There were marble people here…
7. there…
8. and everywhere… It was quite amazing, I have never seen this many marble dealers or collectors in one place at one time. We had come in on Friday with the thought of hitting the room trading but I probably didn’t get to see half of the dealers that were there. It was kind of like going to the San Diego Zoo, no way to see it all in one day. Great Job Steve!!!



9. John Hammon Miller; John is a nice guy who I first met at the Indy marble show. I purchased my first contemporary marbles from him.
10. The Mighty Fishslayer shows some youngsters how to dig into a box of marbles.
11. Here is Griff again; this guy is just way too serious.
12. Steve Zeigler; I got some cool “I don’t know marbles” from him. I’ll probably be posting them for id help before long.



13. Master of glass Eddie Seese…
14. and some of his killer art.
15. Another contemporary glass artist, Kris Parke…
16. and some of his art.



17. Chuck B. and Nola M. Chuck gave me some great advice on some Vitro Parrots so he is now my new Marble Financial Advisor. He looks after my money better than I do, thanks Chuck!
18. Jim O’Connell is on the left. Mark Thompson, on the right came all the way from Kennewick, WA to show off his stuff. I think that these fellows are up to something, check out the looks on their faces.
19. Cathy Runyan was nice enough to sign a copy of her book Knuckles Down book for me.
20. I got the book that Cathy signed from John Harris.



21. Mike Adams from the Indiana Marble Club seems to be enjoying himself.
22. Steve Cogdill came all the way from the West Coast; I got a nice group of Peltiers from him.
23. Kokoken Humphrey. Ken has written a beautiful book on some of the glass industry history in Indiana, Shades of Glass, Gaffer Bournique’s Journey to Indiana. More info is available here, http://www.bourniqueglass.com/
24. Brian Estepp, well known collector and dealer of marbles.



25. Terry Lundeen, Terry had some great MFC stuff as well as some good advice on marbles and kids.
26. Mr. Junior Ice, Junior has a ton of really super Marble King mibs as well as his cool marble toys.
27. Ron Yutzy, takin it easy.
28. Roger Hardy, the great Akro man. He and his wife were very nice people and their selection of Akro marbles was incredible.



29. Bill Kaiser, Bill donated two Marble King bags to my kids marble collection, nice guy.
30. Steve Sturtz, co author of the new Jabo book and man of what would appear to be some controversy. My kids thought he was great.



Now begins the story of the Frog Possession, caution it is not a story for the faint of heart.

31. Diane B. Seemingly nice marble lady but the following pictures could tell a different story. You be the judge. PS. Note camera to the right with hand attached, the hand belongs to a man named Ray Anderson, he could have been an accomplice, we are not for sure yet as we’re still sifting through the evidence. He did however avoid being photographed which is a little suspicious.
32. It all starts innocently enough with a gift, these two cute little frogs were given to my kids, little did I know that hidden within them was the ability to turn generally mild mannered little children into raving madmen.
33. Note the little red tag on the frogs, this was a button. When the button was pushed the kids went wild, the frogs started jitterbugging and singing a maniacal version of “You’re The One That I Want” from the movie Grease.
34. The kids went bonkers (Scary).



35. They let out a yell (even scarier)…
36. then they began running about the room. It was if I had been transported to an Iggy Pop concert but instead of one Iggy there was two little Iggys flailing about the room slam dancing and bouncing off the walls. They were moving so fast that my camera could barely capture the action.
37. In all of the commotion and bouncing around the frogs power source jostled loose and kids and frogs dropped to the floor in and exhausted heap. Note the smiles on their faces; it’s as if they were enjoying this bizarre possession. Anyway the next day things appeared to be back to normal.
38. The kids did seem a little worn out but I guess that is to be expected if you party all night with frogs. The End.



A big thanks to Diane and Ray for entertaining my kids while I talked marbles.

A note on the Frog Possession. Diane B. is always giving my kids gifts. She gave them the animatronics frogs and when we went back to our room the kids had a blast with it. I stopped counting how many times they played “You’re the One That I Want” after about 30 times. Today the kids seem normal but I can’t get Olivia Newton John and John Travolta out of my head

There were many other marble notables there including Art Bowles, Gary Weisenbarger, Kim & Eddie Winningham, Ray Anderson, Rick Rines, Steve Pletcher as well as a large West Coast contigent that included Bud, Lee, Jack, John, Tom, Ray, Mark T, Mark C, as well as others, but fuzzy pictures or lack of pictures kept me from posting them all. If there are any corrections that need to be made to this like misspellings or if I posted your picture and you didn’t want it posted please e-mail me at [email protected]. Thanks, Joe.