Ric

It's a good thread Mibber, but if you're gonna bump a six-year old post with no comment, you should at least show us a marble. ☺️

I think one of the best ways to pretty easily distinguish a hand-ground one is to but a bright light on it and rotate it slowly. If the point of light sort of flickers or appears to jump around a bit, it's probably because of the facets on the hand-made ones. Machine-ground made ones will not show the same. I don't usually need magnification to see this effect.

I agree. 🙂 The second looks Jabo-ish to me.

I agree, except maybe on #1 - I think it might be an odd swirl or even a Vacor. And if #4 is not Alley, I'd say it's a red slag with way too much white in it.

Hand-ground agates are awesome. They were kid's prized possessions long before glass marbles were common. I have a few that literally look like they were hammered. I keep them anyway.

They are Agates (stone), but I don't know about value. The right one is pretty rough.

I think the pale blue on the right one points toward Vitro but . . .? The left one is hard to tell given these pics, but an oddball IMO.

It looks mostly like a Whitie (or variant) to me, if the white is opaque.

The lamps are so cool. IIt would be interesting to learn which of the trays (marbles) are the hardest to find. I have a small one with orange helmets, and I have seen a couple with the black helmets, which I am guessing are less common.

The one we had was a lot like Brads. It was made with two hardwood boards with half-deep cuts on each so they nested together to make the cross. My Uncle Buck (RIP) made it for us. He was a pretty odd character but an awesome guy - one of seventeen kids, along with my Mom. He was pulled out of the water after his ship was hit in the attack on Pearl Harbor and he suffered "shell shock" (PTSD these days) from the experience. He was a Master woodworker - always in his shop, I am sure it was cathartic. The bird house he made for my wife and I 42 years ago is still out in our front yard - a gift he gave to every one of his many (>80) nieces and nephews when they married. Please forgive the diversion. Uncle Buck was my favorite when I was a kid. I still think about him often, and he deserves the tribute.

Interesting, my first thought is Marble King.

I think we only used one die, which means you'd get your marbles out of start in about one of three rolls (statistically) but it would take longer to get around the board. With two die, and pairs, you'd only get out of start in around one in eighteen rolls. 🙂

I updated my answer, since I remembered how to play - I had to look at it a bit longer. Look above.

Nice board, Brad. I think it's called Aggravation. We had one when I was a kid, but I have no recall of how it's played. Nice drawers too! After looking at the game a while longer, it's sort of coming back to me. I think your 4 home color marbles are stored at the base of end of the arms (1-4 players). You roll a dice to get a 1 or a 6 to get out to the center start place on the track. You roll the die - go around the board, if you land on someone else's mib they go back home. your home is the center column of holes above your base after you've gone all the way around. It's like Sorry with marbles.

The red, white and blue ones are notoriously tricky. My best guess is Ravenswood for this one.

Neil, I am more inclined toward machine-made marbles but I always like to see a board full board of nice German hand-mades, and your display is one of the nicest I've seen quite a while. Thanks a lot for sharing it with us!

They're Great marbles, Alley West Virginians

I was just goofin' with you, Chad, but I do think the Wolverine marble is named for the U of M Team colors because I don't see anything blue or yellow here. By Zefram - Self-photographed, CC BY 2.5, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=5492528

You may have missed your chance . . . It could have been a Mountaineer! (Fentonacres marble from another post)

Actually, A Wolverine wears Blue and Gold and plays football for The University of Michigan! Go Blue!

Welcome, Niel! Those are some good looking marbles. It'd be great to see them on the board!

Dave makes some nice marbles, for sure. And the fact that he'll make them "to order" is a big plus too. I especially like the blue and red flames. Although the blue and yellows have"Wolverines" written all over them - Go Blue!

The game is actually really fun, Steph. Based on the wear marks on the game and box lid, I'm betting my reproduction "cue" is pretty close to the real deal. And the bank is just there for interest - I'm glad to see it worked. 🙂

I agree, Al. It would be great to have some more authoritative information about Marble King. As far as I know, Berry Pink was known as the Marble King long before he joined Sellers Peltier to found Marble King - the marble manufacturer.

I would say yes. The marble on the right might be called a "lazy" corkscrew - it just didn't develop as well as the one on the left, which is a mighty nice marble in my estimation!