Ric

It's a good thing for all of us that @Shamrock Marbles is a stand up guy because I am sure his best guineas could fool a lot of people. How about it, John? Would you show us some of your best ones? I'd sure love to see them.

Fortunately, they're not very good ones. I'm sure you've seen much better ones too.

I remember way back in the day, I think it was Big John Ives (RIP) that had a backlight set-up that he made to show off his transparent and translucent Cairo Novelty marbles at shows - he may have had a couple of them. Each was like 2 ft x 4-6 ft and must have had 800-1,200 holes drilled in it where he set the marbles. As I recall, there were fluorescent lights underneath. You know a lot of Cairos don't have much eye appeal but if you put some light behind them they light right up and look real pretty. And I will tell you, his display was really something to see. Does anyone else here remember this? Here's a little tribute to Big John and his Cairo marbles . . .

I think it's some sort of modern torch-made marble.

Leroy was a master polisher, for sure - they look great. The inner core on that Onionskin is very cool, you may not even have known it was there without polishing. Billy polished these for me, most of them just had really bad pocket-wear, so while the pontils are gone they didn't open up as much as some of yours did. I've had them on a shelf with my shaving mirror for years - that way, I can enjoy them from close up. Now that I've retired, that has gone from once a day to like once every couple of weeks. And for the newbies, the key to a marble with good polishing potential is that none of the damage is too deep. If it gets into the embellishments and you want to remove it all, you'll wind up with something that doesn't look anything like the original marble. It's the same with machine-mades, often times you will completely remove the pattern or alter it beyond recognition, depending on the type of marble, and colors can be affected quite a bit to. Fractures pretty much rule out machine polishing, since the marble may well explode during the process or big chunks of glass might come off, depending on the nature of the fracture. The bottom line is that the results of polishing depend a whole lot on what you start with and choosing marbles with the best potential for a good outcome is probably more important than the polishing process itself.

Wow, that's an awesome set - excellent condition and a great mix of styles, all united by that black glass. It's really stunning, thanks for showing it!

It'd be a pretty odd Pelt, reminds me a little of a Vitro Whitie. I'm not quite sure what to think about this one. I wonder if it might be one of the foreign Mushroom types.

Looks like a big chunk of oven brick or some other sort of crud.

I'm with Meep.

A Cat'e Eye with some stray color - kind of cool, orange peel galore, not American IMO.

I think it's just a weird Cat's Eye - not American.

It's a little unusual but I'm with Fire on this one.

I think Fire is on target with this one.

Whoa, that is one gnarly cut off! I think Japanese transitional is probably right.

I am leaning Heaton on the left one - maybe the right one too.

Pretty generic WV swirl that could have been made by a few different companies, IMO.

Looks Asian to me.

It looks more Master than Akro to me but I am not sure it's either.

This reminds me of one of the spheres that Corning used to use in fiberglass production - don't know if they still do. Whatever it is, it has no collectible value.

Yeah, that's an Akro.

Akro rules when it comes to lashes but Master had their fair share too. And FWIW, I don't think this is an American marble.

I think the left one is an Alley that got spun on the rollers. The right one looks mostly Heaton to me but there are other possibilities too, I think.

They look more MK than Vitro to me, although they seem off for either maker to me, and like Fire, I wonder about foreign possibilities.

I'm leaning toward Jackson - kind of a sweet one too.

Oh boy, Art - that's a dandy!