sissydear

I have a few. Please post.

Very nice marble. I like it too.

I don't collect them, but i have a few.

Maybe we are so addicted to marbles that anything round becomes a marble. Power of suggestion.

Some of my favorite Marble King marbles One inch Berry Pink marbles MK Multicolored rainbows 7 Color Marble King Marble King Peacocks Couple of MK watermelons One Inch Marble Kings

Some out of the bag.

Craig, I will be in Sistersville. Ron will know where I am.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/140832236387;jsessionid=53847416101DF759AA6CAFCA15BFE861?ru=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.ebay.com%2Fsch%2Fi.html%3F_sacat%3D0%26_nkw%3D140832236387%26_rdc%3D1

Never saw a pink slag unless it was hand made. I think Ric may be right. it's gone wild.

I think you got, Ric. It does look like a horseshoe cat.

And what is it? Sammy's?

I can't pick one favorite Peltier either. So here are my most favorites. Christmas Trees Flaming Dragons Two peewees Golden Rebels that used to belong to Raymond Anderson. They are not mine either. But i used the pic in a Texas Marble Collector's Newsletter and it's nice to dream! Supermen And several more of my Peltier favorites. That lowly golden rebel is mine and the rainbow next to it has the same colors. I like that.

And Ron Shepherd's post needs an AMEN!

Another of my favorite machine mades:

Beautiful marbles, Ron Shepherd. See you and Nola soon.

No mibs you are not the problem. You just have no idea of what it takes to put on a show.

One of the complaints that show organizers get is "We don't want to move out of our hotel for the show. It's too much trouble to pack up." I don't know if Indiana still does it but when Weldon and I attended the Indiana shows, the show was never in the hotel. You had to pack up and move to something like a convention center. Some people didn't go because of that. Someone will complain no matter what you do. In the south we have a expression for that. Put in the name of the person like "Edna would bitch if she was hung with a new rope."

I guess I'm a trouble maker, killermarbles. I can't pick just one marble. I love all marbles except antique hand mades. I don't talk bad about them and I love looking at them, but I don't collect them. I have some individual favorites of every marble company. I'm posting favorite Akro Agates here. Won't bore you with a bunch, just 6 pics. I like the green and black ones a lot. I like these really old ones. Love displaying marbles in boxes in my marble cabinets. Sparklers are favorites And I like purple corks, especially purple/yellow and purple/green.

Eagle Tapestry by Ken and Sonya Schneidereit - Love their work too. The last pic is a murrine that I purchased along with the marble. Those are eagle feathers on the cap of the marble.

Flower garden Vortex by Kevin O'Grady This marble is larger than 3 inches in diameter. I love Kevin' O'Grady's work. I'll bet you were expecting machine made marbles. LOL!

Mibs, I don't know where you live, but auditoriums get rent money too. And you have to pay for security. In Sistersville, some people cover their stuff with tarps or table cloths and leave it over night and it's still there the next day. Try that in the big city.

Sistersville is a tiny town, rooted in the traditons of the glass industry. They shut down the major streets of town. They let us sit in their front yards. Jim King sponsors the Festival. I'm sure he foots a big bill. They can't park their cars in front of their homes. Picture that in Houston, Dallas, San Antonio, Cleveland, even Canton, Tulsa, Los Angeles, Boston, etc. Where I live the weather is not as pleasant as Sistersville. In September, it's cool all day. Try that in Houston at 100 degrees. Get people to come sit outside in the heat. In Sistersville, people are not like the big city. I can imagine the security force that would have to be hired to protect us and our marbles. LOL! They have a unique situation in WV and thank God for it. Step up and help. Instead of being the problem, help to solve it.

All of these negative comments about Smitty being worn out, feeling put upon, having to spend his own money for entertaining us instead of on marbles for himself or fun times with his family to the point of breaking down and letting us know his feelings are absolutely absurd. Now that you know what it costs and that he has no help and that it's financially a burden for him, where is the kindness? Where is the understanding? I did notice that some of us volunteered to help. How about helping him organize a club? Give Smitty some lasting help. Form a club that will go on and on. Elect some officers and a board of trustees. Write a consitituion and by laws. Offer a newsletter several times a year. There are a lot of you with a lot of knowledge. Put it in print and pass on what took you years to accumulate by reading books, handling marbles, going to shows, meeting artists, watching marbles be made. I hate to keep saying this but our club has helped other clubs organize themselves. (See, I am a Texan, but I refrained from saying IN TEXAS WE DO blah, blah, blah. ) I know The Nutmeg Club will not mind me mentioning them. They have it all together except for their own club newsletter. We fixed that. They affiliated with the Texas Club and they share our newsletter. They pay us $10 per member each year, they write articles about what their club is doing, marble knowledge they have and are willing to share, and they furnish us addresses of their members. We write, print, and mail out the newsletter to our members and theirs. Some of us Texans even joined their club. Some West Virginians joined their club too. Lest you think we get rich off the Nutmeg Club, figure up the cost of colored ink, paper, stamps, envelopes, labor, etc. and we probably break even. BUT, we have helped to grow a club and our hobby. Now for the complainers, I complain sometimes too. I don't like the negativity I see regularly from some of the members of this board. They think I'm a Pollyanna. I don't like the world they surround themselves with on this board - they don't like my world. I guarantee you my world is more pleasant and a heck of a lot more fun. I may live longer because i don't go around trying to stir up "stink". Sometimes when I've had enough of the stink, I join in and ask them to think. Think about how you come across to others. I keep hearing that people don't act like this at marble shows. They are really nice. Well, in my experience, some of them are just the same and I don't want to know them any better. Now, I've been negative. You can jump on me and give Smitty a rest. Hang in there Smitty. See you in Sistersville. I think you need a hug.

One more thought for Smitty. A couple of years ago, after losing my husband in a horrific wreck, another stress causing incident occurred that involved my having to protect the Texas Marble Collectors Club. I was very stressed to say the least. One of my members and trusted friend Jim Garber gave me some great advice. It went sort of like this. Edna, pick out some of your favorite marbles, put them around you where you can look and enjoy. Sit down with your favorite beverage and sip and enjoy the marbles. I did just that. My favorite beverage in the dead of winter is a good cup of hot tea. I surrounded myself with gorgeous contemporary art glass marbles and sipped my tea and thought about all the beauty of those marbles and the good thoughts about the artists who made them. Smitty, you will be amazed at how much better that sort of thing can make you feel. I love marbles. They bring joy to my life. Forget all the negative people, negative remarks, and the intentional crap some people bring to your life.

I just realized after reading your comments that most of your shows are not supported by your club. By that I mean, Texas Marble Collectors Inc is 20 years old. We have a bank account. We have trustees and officers. Nobody bears the expense of putting on a marble show. We set a budget for each of our two shows a year. We have a person in charge of our Spring Show and that person presents the location and expenses to our Board of Trustees at the Fall Show and we approve it them. Nobody has to personally pay for the showroom or coffee or donuts. The club pays. We have another person responsible for all the details of the Fall Show and that person presents the location and expenses to the Board of Trustees at the Spring Show. It works for us. We charge table fees for the show. The showroom can cost $500 to over $1,000 a day. I laughed when i read that someone thinks we should have the show room for 3 days. Club dues are minimal. We pay $15 a year for an individual membership and $20 for a family membership. In the last 4 years each of our shows has paid for itself with a small profit left over. We do a silent auction during the show, set up at extra tables and some real bargains result. We also pay for the hotel rooms for presenters who are out of state and we give them their tables in the showroom for no fee. Some of us try to personally cover the meals of that type of guest also. In no way does it pay for their airfares or their cross country gasoline expenses, but it's a gesture that is appreciated when we partly compensate for their visit. We have a great time during the in room shopping and also at a our shows. We actually like each other and love catching up on the news about each member. Shoot, we even all go out to eat together in the evenings and we have one hotel that provides special meals in a private room just so we can all fit in one place. It kind of sounds like to me that some of you need to do some work on forming a marble club that shares the work, the responsibility, and the expense. 20 years and still having fun. By the way, we are located in the Bible Belt. We don't provide beer and drinks in a hospitality room. We are family oriented. Most of us will imbibe, but at our own expense.