Poplarhead

Big john: My grandmother (cousin now owns house) lived and had a house right next to Henryville Indiana high school. What a disaster . My heart goes out to all. Where I live you can have both hurricanes and tornados but tornados are worse because usually don't have much warning. The link below of helicopter flyover gives an overview of destruction... Don http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/03/02/henryville-high-school-damaged-tornado-indiana_n_1317611.html

Saturday I went to an auction and lo and behold for the first time in some time I saw some marbles. Not much but did have a bag of about a 100 Vitro tigereye types. After waiting through a variety of sold items I got the marbles with no competitors. So not abad day, bunch of older marbles for a good price. However, looking at the marbles they looked familiar, like I had seen before. When I got home I discovered why, 15+ years ago a local friend was called by a person who said he had some very old marbles for sale. We had just started collecting for a couple years in those days so he asked me to go with him to look at the marbles and help advise him. We drive about 40 miles out into the countryside to see this gentleman. He had his old marbles ready and the Grists Volume No, 1 Big Book of Marbles setting up besides the box of marbles. He began by saying these marbles were exactly as in the book and were rare old handmades. He had about 20 bags with labels on them as he had identified from book. Even for beginning collectors we knew what a handmade was - he had Alley common yellow and white swirls labeled as onionskin lutzs, etc. What he really had was a small collection of 1950s machine mades. He proceeded to put the hard sell on my friend and tell him they were worth thousands and couldn't part for less. Well after looking over my friend really wanted the bag of tigereyes (marked as agate corkscrews) and asked me what he should do, I told him to make him an offer for what they were worth since there were a lot of purple ones in lot. He offered a very generous $30 and the dealer went wild , almost kicking us out of the house. Anyway we discussed several times over the years the attemptred scam on him but when I got home and looked closer at bags of marbles I got at auction I could see same labels I saw 15+ years ago. Here was the very same lot of marbles with none sold....I was blown away and had to call friend and tell him story, How they wound up back this way would be another good story but got them all for $10.. Don

Hey Hansel - how much for the dog? :-)

All Marble Kings

Wild swirl - older type...

Thanks steve! Don

Ron: I see somebody else has 3 of these boxes.... Don

Ming Checker Board - saved picture from somebody's post. Because of size would say Vitro but not sure. Don

Amazing Rich... Don

The dark green one also came in a shooter size - first small sized one i have found..

There are some killer varieities of these out there to find for fellow cats collectors....these supposedly came from person who lived near factory..

I met Earl once at a Columbus show, only because I walked into his room and saw the best handmade collection I had ever seen and probably will never see again one like it. There were so many old 2+ inch handmades I thought at first the bed was layed out with contemporaries. Had a nice chat with him . Good memories. Don

http://www.marbleshowcase.com/index.htm Try this place. Don

Yes not too many of those grey ones - must have been a short run compared to other colors. Looks like Shephard will be visiting your room. Don

A neat item from movie - also have a bag somewhere but couldn't find it quickly.

Here is another picture of this box.... Don

Ric: Whne I went back and look at the box I was thinking it may have Cairo Agates in it instead of Alleys - I think I have a couple I dug on site about 10 years ago like one sin box.... We need Ron Shephard to weigh in on this...I also found another picture copy , will share later. Don

Art: Your price is exactly in range I was going to offer. Thanks Don

Here is what it should look like from my picture files... Don

What would you pay for this box, found locally. Incomplete, water damaged , missing insert boxes and most marbles. Would like input of others so can make fair offer. Thanks Don

Yes I wish Dave would try his hand at some multicolored catseyes at Jabo - somwbody at Vitro made som beautiful hybrids... Don

Here are some candidates.... some mine and some others...

I did a little research and there was a Norland family that had three department stores in Nebraska.. could be why hard to find. Also looks like Alleys to me and some nice ones!

Rich: It is a "jobber box", company purchases marbles from a factory and packages in their own style box. Don

Here was interesting article on Master Marbles connection...almost had some large vintage blue marbles saved.... Don http://www.cambridgeglass.org/articles/9700/98crystalball300b.php