Ric

Awesome pics, Fire - not your typical commute to work, that's for sure!

I think Alley too.

The bottom line is, buy and collect whatever you like for whatever reason you like it! The day marbles don't make me happy is the day I sell my collection. The only thing that is not in the eyes of the owner is the marble's monetary value - that is entirely up to the buyer. Personally, I like my marbles as pristine as I can find them. But I have plenty of non-mint marbles in my collection, either because I have not found a better/cleaner example or I was unwilling to pay the asking price for one. Does that make me a snob?

This marble is tough because of the colors. Akro, Alley and CAC all used the combination of yellow and red. The red does not look CAC on my monitor, but that could just be my monitor, other's monitors may display it differently. To me, it looks mostly Alley but that could easily change if I had the marble in hand. I think this marble is a good example of why the accuracy of color reproduction is so important for proper marble ID. As I always say, first thing to do before you upload a photo for ID is to make sure the photo on your monitor actually looks like the marble in hand. My bet is that was done here but slight differences in the way color is reproduced on different monitors can throw off an ID too. At this point, I'd want to see this marble in hand before I made a call one way or another.

Yours is heavily played with and hers is in excellent condition. It also makes sense to me since you are in Canada and are more likely to find them there than here. I've been looking for examples but haven't had any luck yet.

I think it is one of the Japanese Duck marbles that @shiroaiko introduced to us recently.

I don't get this - I'm right handed and I would be spinning it clockwise. I totally understand the idea of right and left hand spins but I don't think it necessarily has anything to do with whether the marble maker was right or left handed, just which direction they were prone to twisting the cane. Added Later . . . Did you mean, "Makers of right handed marbles spin/spun the cane counterclockwise, and makers of left handed marbles spin/spun the cane clockwise"? Because that makes sense.

They are all good points but I would qualify the last statement by saying, "unless you're trying to trade with them or sell them a marble". My go to is, "It's your marble. You can call it what you want, grade it as you wish, and value it as you like. You just can't expect others to agree." 🙂

I definitely see what Alan sees with this one, but I also see an Alley.

I agree with your disagreement, it would have to show a few more colors before I would call it a Sparkler.

Looks like a dug Popeye Patch to me.

I'm leaning toward Akro over Vitro for this one. Some of these give people fits because they look a lot like Vitro Helmets.

A few of Billy's good ones . . .

I agree with Al - it's a strong flicker or a weak flame. Some marbles just don't like to play our name games. It is an Alley Agate though. 🙂

And I really didn't mean to sound harsh. I have an aversion to marketing hype, in general. I know people collect all sorts of marbles. I like a lot of marbles others would consider junk and I am sure I have thrown away 1000s of marbles others might consider valuable. There is no accounting for taste, one person's killer is another person's reject. If you had titled this post "Unique Ghostly Spiral", I probably wouldn't have said a word.

It's certainly possible the QC folks missed this marble but I assure you that Akro did not gain its reputation for selling marbles like this one. Any QC person who let too many of these slip by probably would have lost their job. And just to keep things in perspective, Akro closed about 15 years before this collector was born and people were likely digging there 10 years before he was in kindergarten. What do you think the odds are that a kid walked into a Five and Dime where a bushel of brand new Akro Spirals were selling five for a nickel and they pick the "Ghost Snake Killer"? You've had plenty of great marbles and I admire your efforts to market them but try to keep it real. I am probably not the only person who finds this sort of hyper hype off-putting.

My first thought is a Vitro but it would be nice to see what it looks like with strong backlighting.

This marble is short on striping glass. I doubt it would have cleared QC.

Akro IMO.

Conqueror variant IMO.

Pretty Akro Tricolor, I think.

The way they are sort of randomly placed on different marbles - I'd go with patches.

Might be a Cairo Cloudy Day - they're not all seedy.

Based on this single view, I'm thinking Ravenswood or Heaton, in that order.

I'd guess Alley.