Ric

In the sun today.

Come on, Bill, you know I wouldn't do that.

That is hilarious. Thank you for the laugh! I'm pretty sure it's a Christensen.

May all prepare and persevere.

Nice trays!

#113.1 - probably should have used it the first time.

This is one of the 90%

That is a nice one.

Those are some dandies Ed. If the first one is still in the "are" category and you would like to move it to the "were" category, please let me know!

Wow is right. I'd say there are some real keepers here - the Leighton and the egg-yolks are outstanding and the twins are super cool! This one's kind of dark but . . .

Yea, I'm not suggesting it was like "let's start making sweet flames now" or "let's switch over to octopi". They are random swirls, no doubt, chance is most of it with respect to any particular pattern. I was only suggesting that a good glass team could setup their tanks, stream and shear operations to tilt the odds towards producing the kind of marbles they wanted. I doubt Alley wanted his marbles to look like Christensen's or vice versa. Surely, companies tried to distinguish themselves with glass quality and colors too. Isn't that why we can still distinguish many of them today?

Oh yea . . .

I remember the days of "transparencies". In fact, I'm old enough to remember calling them "acetates". I think calligraphy is calligraphy whether it appears on solid paper, opaque glass, transparencies, transparent glass, or the beach for that matter. So, I agree!

Nice head, nice tail, nice coil and a half, and it glows too. It's one of my favorites.

And I agree.

Are you suggesting they just threw it all together and hoped for the best? That they didn't want to distinguish themselves from the competition? That brand had no meaning? That seems unlikely to me.

No doubt, a lot of the craftsmanship is in setting up the process in a way that increases the probability of producing a marble with an awesome pattern like this one!

I have not seen ox with black. But I have had a few with oxblood under blue. Wasn't there a name for those . . . was it Blueblood?

I like the octopus!

I agree with Steph about the Imperial-type (Asian). I say "-type" because I think Vacor (Mexico) also made similar ones. The first marble looks more JABO than anything else to me. The Alley is a dandy. I don't think it has a name but "big chocolate Alley with green striping" works for most people in the know.

I think the first pic, bottom right is a Ravenswood, and the second pic, top right, is an Alley. I think the remainder are mostly JABO (except the two Imperial-types and maybe the one Steph mentioned). The Alley is a good marble. If it's mint or close and you want to sell it, please let me know.

A good "R" is hard to find IMO, and I usually look for them. That is a nice one. Have you looked for aventurine in the green? It wouldn't surprise me if you found a little.

I think Champion operated for a few years after 2000 but I am not sure, and it would not surprise me if these marbles were made sometime in the eighties or later. As for an exact year, I don't know that Champion production was that carefully documented, at least I have not seen any such documentation.

This is a tough one. Several different makers are possible but I think Champion is more likely than Heaton or Ravenswood.