B.T.

Here's a link to some of Chris Robinson's road n tunnels:-) BT

I aggee, this is an exceptional guinea!!! Bill Tow

Wow! !! !!!! That is a killer marble Greg! It may be hand gathered but it also gathers EYES!!! Thanks for sharing! BT

messed up? :-)...who me:-) ... confused yes!!! messed up, well at least not since the mid seventies....lol I like being confused .... did you read the guinea thread?? .... lol @ myself:-) You may not be all that wrong Rick ... Vicki says I am perpetually confuded.... I have keep her fooled for 26 years:-) the big amber one is 1 5/8" I will take a group shot of all me larger ones... Sorry Greg ... I coulnd't help myself:-) but see buddy .. yours would look great with these, or maybe mine would look great over with yours!!!!

Sweet Greg!!! Gotta love those popeyes:-) The middle slag in the bottom row is outrageous!!! If you didn't love slags as much as I do, (or should I say... If I love slags as much as you do!!), I'd try to talk that one out from under your thumb:-) With some ridiculous trade offer, (overly balanced in your favor), but I know better to even ask....lol:-) Hopefully, we will be talking about something else real soon:-) BT

Too funny John.... I am almost done with my next shirt design and it does say.... Think Outside of the Sphere:-)...... of cousre it's full of killer marbles too!! BT

Brad, I think your observations about the differences in the gathers are the key... I was typing my thoughts right after you posted and I did not see them prior to posting my response... BT ps:-) Perhaps the c.a. company did not conern itself with what was cost effective... maybe this is part of the reason with others which contributed to it's demise??? lol:-)

Perhaps there are different means of hand gathering glass.???:-):-)... that ultimately creates different construction features. In the case of guineas the gather may have been constructed differently than the stereotypic hand gathered marble, (slags, german marbles, and so on), which all manifested archetypical construction features we associate with the term hand gathered... mainly nines and tails. Were slags, german marbles, and other transitionals gathers made with a more viscous glass, (hotter), and thus swirled together, needing less manipulation??? Less colors being combined to form the gather ... does this eqaute to less manipulation??? I know someone who makes these awesome oxblood marbles who might be able to answer that question??? :-) Guineas may have needed more manipulation, ( a completelty different gathering process mani;ulating less viscous glass...cooler), to get the base glass and the spots to bond smoothly as shown in the difference between vacors and guineas?? In all the years I have collected c.a’s I would have never had thought this were plausible until seeing actual demonstrations on John’s machine. Is it possible that the term hand gathered is not the right term, perhaps hand manipulated would be a better means of describing the process:-) Anyway, either way, six of one a half dozen of another...think outside the SPHERE!!!!.....lol:-).... mibolution:-) it's all good to me... I just like pretty marbles:-) BT

Sure they could??? If the initial gather is a cylinder rolled in frit and then worked with a marver and folded over two of the external hemispheres, (surfaces), where the frit was applied are now in the center of the gob. This is could also explain way there are large open area's of transparent glass windows on the surface of many guineas????In this case the center, (glass), of the initial gather is now on the outside. John has demonstrated this at several marble shows. He works the gather, shears it, then drops the smaller gobs into his rounding machine. Thus, creating shear marks, both single and double where he cut the initial gather. Some of John's awesome Shamrock marbles have shear marks virtually the same as vintage c.a.'s. You saw the guinea above!! I have some of his marbles that also have colors in the base glass.... because the initial gather was worked, some of the external surfaces are now inside the gather and subsequently inside marbles. I bet he might be able to make a guinea with colored glass on the inside:-) Striped opaques have glass that is on the surface that summerged into the base, the glass must have been worked in some way also. I have pieces of striped opaques that clearly show this What about submarines???:-) How the glass is manipulated prior to being sheared and dropped into the rounding mechanism determines what the marbles will look like and what observable construction features will be visible. The rollers or screws only make the gobs round they don't create construction features.?????? remember, Buddy... this is nothing more than pure speculation????? Come watch me make some marbles and I'll show you the folding part at leasst. I don't have a rounding machine and I don't make multi-marble gathers, just single gathered and mine have ponty marbks...not shear marks!!! We can make a bunch of bluezngreenz too:-)... as many as you want!!! I am most likely wrong but I still don't think they were made on fully automatic machines. I just don't see how a fully automatic machine could make marbles with smooth spots, and colored glass on the inside:-)??? If the the frit is not worked in they would look like vacors??? Do the spotted vacors have glass, (spots), on the inside???? :-) It's possible the patent time line relative to c.a.c's production timeline may support this also?? Hopefully John, will add his perspective from his own experience making marble by gathering glass, twisting it, folding it and dropping a gob from his gather into his rounding machine. I am sure I did not do so near as well as he could. I also do not speak for John and he may very well correct me on fine points!!!!!

Here's a few of crazy single shearmark c.a.'s .... .... an two opaques and a transparent. There's some wild loopy action going on in their construction.

Either way, like you said we will most likely never know absolutely for sure.... Glad to hear you be diplomatic dude...:-) Seems to me some if not all of the so called exotics could have been hand gathered as well:-) Just my humble opinion... HELL I DON"T KNOW:-) Especially ones with five or more colors.... like guineas. When you start putting more colors then that together for very long they bleed and blend. I think it is plausible this is why there are such fewer numbers of both types than there are slags. If they had been made using continous stream technology there should be a hell of a lot more of both guineas and the fancy multicolored slags made. I have mixed some glass a few times:-) I think this is hard to dismiss completely. One thing is for sure in my mind, they both were made this way at first and then machinery may possibly have been adpated to achieve the same end???..... However, the height of their productio was 27, 28, and 29? and we know what happened in august on a certain Black Monday! One has to wonder how all these variables impacted the production timeline relative to actual production numbers. I still can't envision spots form a continous stream! call me crazy I am sure someone will:-)!!!!! Like I said, I don't know nor do I really care other than a passing curiousity!! I am glad it's a topic that others find interesting and and worthy of debate as long as individuals act their age:-).. I just like pretty marbles:-) BT

No need to protect any investment here, for two reasons. I was very fortunate to get in on them before they went through the roof. Sadly, I had to sell many of the ones I bought long ago. Had a few bad years there, glad I have a nice marble collection to help out when things were not as good as they might be. I have a few left, less than a dozen and believe me they aren't the high dollar ones. I have always been drawn to unique construction features vs. the ones that sell for the highest prices because they have some fancy name:-) I still like flames better then these fancy multicolored slags also!! The proof thing well, I'll just leave it at that!!! Sure, I like c.a.'s and you might say I still have a pretty nice collection:-).... but they are not my favorite marbles by any means. Hand Gathered marbles have always been my favorite marbles and always will be ...... oh ya.... some people might think I have something for bluengreenz marbles:-) BT Oh ya, I have what many would call exotics, (man I hate that name,) that I have had 13 years plus..... long before these all surfaced ...lol Like you have said, just look at the Grist's book they are there in plain sight.

You said it Galen:-)... not me...lol Kind of ironic isn't it don't you think. I could have posted these images years ago but I never felt I needed to prove anything to anyone! ...... And I still don’t! Here's some cool drips and pieces, one of them looks like mickey mouse:-)

I am still attending the school of "I don't know s*^$#t about marbles and the more I learn about marbles, the more I learn, that I need to learn more about marbles" Man that's a mouthful:-)..... Imagine the letter head...lol Tuition at this school is free all you have to do to enroll is show up with a smile on your face. It's open to everybody!!!! Experience is the most popular teacher at this school. Everybody wants to get in this class cause it's fun!!! The learning curve at this school is never ending. Remember when you attack me guys:-)... that this is nothing more than thoughtful speculation and I do not pretend for a second to know how they were actually made!!! I think it's more likely they were made with molten gobs rolled in frit vs an actual cane. A cane infers glass that has cooled and is solidified ..... I think???....lol:-) Scott, perhaps you were thinking of a molten gob??? This way the gob is still hot enough for someone to roll it in frit and to cut smaller individual gobs that were then dropped into the rounding groves.... "forming machine." Hard to say exactly how long the larger gobs were but envision a gathering boy gathering up a molten gob and rolling it in frit and someone else standing there cutting the pieces off one by one. This is pure speculation ....lol At this point I doubt they had developed the machinery using continuous molten stream of glass that could make spots on the molten glass...:-) ...and yes the end gobs could indeed be structured like a cloud, similar to the cobra I posted the other day. Certainly one of these gobs rolled in frit might not have been used, thus solidifying and creating a cane like artifact?? .... I am probably wrong again:-)!!!!!!! .Thoughts..... I think Scott Meyer demostrated this technique at Weaton Village on the Vitro machine he refurbished!!! How f*&$#$@&%&^ cool!! I have two marbles he made on this machine, a guinea type, and a cobra type. here's pick of a single cut line 11/16" amber guinea backlit. It looks molten...lol:-)

Buddy did you go to the school of I know everything about marbles:-)...lol:-) I hear tuition is noting more than a worship clause:-) Where blind worship is required as though master is the dali lama of marblehood! You know where all of us don't know anything and if we act as though we do we get lectured by the great one...lol you know that diagram does really look familiar:-):-):-)

Here’s another interseting and cool c.a. artifact. This guinea fragment actually shows the shear mark.... BT

I don't know. Good question though Brad. I would say higher probability it's the photography vs. the glass. Here's another image. Bill

there are some really cool and interesting peices of glass here. BT WHOOPS, first time I ever double posted. Sue, Lou, or Del would you please delete one of these:-) Thanks, Bill

Man, talk about the can that can....lol The stuff dreams are made of!!!! BT

Did they come from members of the family via the worker or were they found in the wild dude?

Crystal bricks come form the mfc line of pavers:-) Extremely rare marbles. I have only seen two in 18 years. Both were right about an inch in size.

Thanks Brian, Put me on the list for some of your 21st century pavers dude!!!! I can dream can't I... BT

By the way. People would be amazed how many bricks have green in the base but not on the surface. I took pic's of Brian G. collection of brick pieces he dug at the factory site and was shocked at how many had traces and more or green glass inside the marbles.

Right on dude:-)!! I love em all. I can't get enough pavers!...lol:-) BT

First pic, crystal brick. A blue n green brick, second pic. Two moss agates, third and forth pic. The second moss agate has been polished. Someone already posted it, must have copied it from another time I posted it, but here it is again. The fifth pic is a green brick. The sixth is a brick with white. Thanks for looking. BT