popeyecollector

Great assortment of handmades. Your friend must have picked from a major collection. They are beautiful even see rare left hand made swirls. My favorites are near surface parallel white lines over a red or blue "jelly" core. That green spotted was great The single ribbons with several twists were excellent two marbles were shown last were show stoppers Steve

The dust has settled after the sale of that mint 3/4” plus red mica for $1,525 - let’s see if we can share our thoughts on what sort of vintage hand made marble we would shell out a house payment for and not suffer from severe buyer’s remorse? Here are some of my high dollar marble purchase rules: Do you have some to share ? • Condition ! Condition ! Condition ! Avoid anything less than mint - then you never need make any excuse for a flea bite, no harm chip or any as made negative factor. • Size The bigger the better. • Masterpiece Obvious example of a craftsman's glass manipulating skills - creating a marble that is an eye pleasing blend of color and symmetry. • Beautiful production error Creating a marble that is an eye pleasing blend of color and asymmetry •••• A true test for a great marble is if a non-marble collecting neighbor sees your prize and says, “Whoa ! That is a beautiful marble.” These are my thoughts on the subject. Please share yours . . . Thanks for looking. Big Indian

I agree - the clam broth is the best and coming ins second would be the Indian Swirl -- BUT remember both of those types easily chipped cutting seriously into the value. So. CONDITION, CONDITION, CONDITION is very important to collectors ! ! ! Big Indian

The new Peltier book arrived this morning. Just had time to thumb through it. Compared to some marble books of the past 30 years - this one is excellent - pictures are clear, large and the extensive text seems to cover a spectrum of contributions to marbles that came out of Ottawa, Illinois. Some previous marble books were frustratingly full of errors and small - poor quality pictures. One marble book author had small pictures of many marbles only commenting , "Enjoy." Again, Great Peltier book!

Did not know that it was so expensive to finance our marble Board. How do I contribute? I will be back from D.C. on Thursday.

Hmmmmmm ... 7/8" is very close to 15/16" and a mint surface on a vintage marble with oxblood. Doesn't any one even think ---- Bulgarian?

I may be behind the times --but . . . This is a polymer clay “marble” made by Carl Fisher, an IBM engineer- turned from vintage glass marble collector to an apparently successful maker of lightweight copies of classic glass marbles. There is an interview and series with pictures of his work on the internet -- Google --- Carl Fisher marbles interview P. C.

Top one is most likely a Brazilian agate - hand ground in Germany - making a shooter. It was probably not dyed. The pole opposite the nice strata bands has what is called "sugaring." This is a softer area of weakness where the agate did not completely crystalize and is considered an imperfection. The "moon" impact fractures cam be masked by soaking the agate for several days in olive oil. In earlier times lard was the preferred soak. Big Indian

Just remembered - I have a 5/8" marble that is printed on one side "Exposition Chicago 1492 - 1893". It is in a ring and drilled - to make some sort of pendant. The opposite side is a colored view that looks like a gondola scene in Venice. I understand that the Chicago Columbian Exposition had such a lake and simulated view of Venice. So what is it - a souvenir of that Exposition? Who made it in 1893? Or a fantasy? Big Indian with no photo skills

So much space is given to machine made marble names - why not look to hand made stone agates for a breath of fresh air? Definition -- Chalcedony a hard stone deposit, usually formed into a football size solid nodule or hollow geode by a long process of water evaporation and a layered deposition of dissolved mineral impurities. Common types are agate, carnelian (aka cornelian), moss agate and onyx Onward --In my view agates that found their way into kids marble bags or game boards were never larger than 3/4. (Cant grip with index finger for shooting!) Some vintage eye candy faceted agates greater than 1.5 exist but most are contemporary. All German agate marbles were facetted and probably more for eye appeal - dyed with sugar, sulfuric acid, arsenic along with other nasty chemicals - then often exposed to UV light to produced intense bands of black, yellow, blue, white and a rare green. When geode - nodule supplies ran out in Germany - eastern Brazil had plenty of exactly the same agate geode - nodules! -- (thanks to Continental Drift) -- Beware of marbles made of lapis lazuli, tigers eye, moss agate, lace agate, bloodstone or any other exotic mineral, they were probably purchased at a gem and mineral show and slipped into the secondary market or at least not made for a marble bag. Spoiler Alert! Some years back -there were skillful grinders taking orders to custom apply facets or ground pontils! Some of the mineral information was taken from Wikipedia. Thats my story and Im sticking to it! Big Indian

So much space is given to machine made marble names - why not look to hand made stone agates for a breath of fresh air? Definition -- Chalcedony a hard stone deposit, usually formed into a football size solid nodule or hollow geode by a long process of water evaporation and a layered deposition of dissolved mineral impurities. Common types are agate, carnelian (aka cornelian), moss agate and onyx Onward --In my view agates that found their way into kids marble bags or game boards were never larger than 3/4. (Cant grip with index finger for shooting!) Some vintage eye candy faceted agates greater than 1.5 exist but most are contemporary. All German agate marbles were facetted and probably more for eye appeal - dyed with sugar, sulfuric acid, arsenic along with other nasty chemicals - then often exposed to UV light to produced intense bands of black, yellow, blue, white and a rare green. When geode - nodule supplies ran out in Germany - eastern Brazil had plenty of exactly the same agate geode - nodules! -- (thanks to Continental Drift) -- Beware of marbles made of lapis lazuli, tigers eye, moss agate, lace agate, bloodstone or any other exotic mineral, they were probably purchased at a gem and mineral show and slipped into the secondary market or at least not made for a marble bag. Spoiler Alert! Some years back -there were skillful grinders taking orders to custom apply facets or ground pontils! Some of the mineral information was taken from Wikipedia. Thats my story and Im sticking to it! Big Indian

Great find! Now begins your search for the rest of the cutouts that were on that page. A dealer I once knew called an uncut page with such a great topic - "a Holy Grail." Big Indian

Just my opinion - but I have always felt that a red mica was the most over rated - and over priced marble in our world of vintage marble collecting ! ! ! Give me a colorful Indian swirl any day.

He will be missed. We all remenber Rich as the collector who was not willing to sell a prized pee wee until he was offered $1,000 . Rich responded to the offer with, "Do you wat a bag for that?" RIP Rich Respectfullly - Big Indian, no braid

In my view - pontils (Frequently refered to as "pontil scars.") - except the faceted or ground pontils were a product of shearing the last marble from the molten gather just before rounding. The ground pontil was produced by a second hand held step where the rough shear scar was ground off using a grinding wheel - leaving single or multiple facets. The pictured circular scars in this thread are made by the marble shears not an abrasive wheel. Big Indian