akronmarbles

Those are tasty Mike...2347 is killer.

Too cool...

The glass woman is making a bead. Cool piece....

Well - my example might only be .850. It's hard to tell since it is less that a half and I am estimating the size - probably just a messed up shooter. Amber based. I would post a pic but my camera is not cooperating.

Scott, I believe so. Let me dig it out later and I will post a photo.

I have a fragment of one that large from the factory site.

Nikon Coolpix 8800 Handmade oxblood.....

Scott, Here's more pics of the machine at Wheaton. Are these from the year that you made the hand gathered marbles? These are from 2003 Wheaton photos on Glassartist.com

Here's some pics.... The Vitro machine. Akro oxblood vase and experimental marble as requested....

Here's a pic of the new unit.......obviously not completely put together. I'll get another pic of it throwing some heat. It's set at 2100F currently.

Scott you da' man.... So that makes my example a very rare marble. It's pretty cool looking and I thank you again for letting me have a piece of history. I need a COA to go with it - I have it now in a tiny ziplock bag along with a note saying when it was made, etc - what would the date have been? I have it with the blown Akro ox vase you gave me :-) Glad to hear that your glass shop is coming together. I'm always looking for road trip excuses. The location you descibed sounds like a gold mine for a gallery. My new 200 pound furnace is finally turned on and I have been blowing out of it for the last week. Maybe I'll go play with some hot glass later....lol

I still have an Akro oxblood cullet marble that you made on the Vitro machine. How many of those were made? Weren't a few of those sold through Bob back in the day?

MFC marbles are all machine made - in other words, they will never have a pontil. NEVER! I know because I have spent 1000's or hours researching MFC as well as conducting numerous archaeological excavations at the factory site - including inside of the building - RIP Leighton only made melted pontil hand gathered marbles at his numerous marble factories. I know because I conducted archaeological research at every factory site which is still available for study. The Germans on the other hand made ground pontil hand gathered marbles. This is published in a great book by Herbert Kuhnert as well as in other period (circa 1850) documents where the Greiner family displayed their wares at International Expositions, etc.

Based off of the archaeological evidence found at MFC, I would say probably not. The color is unlike anything that I encountered there.

Interesting question that I have also pondered before - no sales agreement exist that I am aware of - we did try to find out about the "capitalist" and I think came up with an East coast business - probably have some notes somewhere, but not sure where they would be at this moment.

Looks like a polished marble to me.

I have been unable to verify this as well- I know he was quite busy in 1897 setting up the Navarre plant - you would think there would be existing literature from the Exposition somewhere. There may have been another glass maker doing demonstrations which Leighton could have easily jumped in with. It only requires a few pots of glass in a furnace to make hand gathered marbles. The rest is all done with portable hand tools.

Hot off the presses....very limited edition seeing as I can only make about 40 marbles a whack. These are the best green bricks I have made yet.

Awesome....

I listed this group for sale on my website - here's the link: Brian's marbles for sale...

Here's a few more new pavers from the furnace.

Yes - this is Brian Graham - I may try to list some on fleabay but work has me very busy as of late.

I finally had some free time to make a few marbles again - these were made yesterday - smallest is 3/4" in size.

The Summit County company is the Standard Toy Marble company. I have parts of the plaster shaping blocks they refer to.

Thanks all... I like the fact that they are played with as well. I don't like putting any products on marbles to make them appear more pristine - most coatings seem to have a limited shelf life to them anyways. Not worth messing with in my opinion.