BIBLEfreak

May the LORD bless you and keep you! May HE make is face to shine upon you and be gracious to! May He lift up His countenance upon you and give you PEACE! HAPPY PAPPY BIRTHDAY! BROTHER!

These are HIS. I am photographing some for him. We will see what the LORD provides as he mentioned he was sending me some to keep as well!

Dave Becker is a marble craftsman who took up the art of polymer clay after being inspired by Carl Fishers work. Dave lives in Colorado and works out of his home crafting the detailed beauties you will see below. He was kind enough to send me some examples and I did what I do with the camera and a bit of Paint Shop Pro X2 and well you be the Judge. Be sure to click on this link to see all of the images of the samples he sent me. I will be updating this link as time goes on and the LORD allows! http://www.biblefreak.org/marbles/web/MibID/BigChiefClayMarbles Dave Becker can be contacted at [email protected] Tell him BIBLEfreak sent you! Just a late Friday afternoon contribution! Dave Becker, not only one heck of a human being, but a skilled Clay artist. Dave styled these after the killer headdresses of Native American Indians! Your looking at 6 different marbles! FEATHERS or FLAMES YOU BE THE JUDGE! :happy-857::happy-857::happy-857::happy-857::happy-857::happy-857:

These are all FOR SALE now! http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=250700119292&ssPageName=STRK:MESELX:IT#ht_7036wt_1340 http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=250700119305&ssPageName=STRK:MESELX:IT#ht_3283wt_1137

Very nice! Which it had been a movie rather than stills.

WOO HOO! I cant wait!

THESE ARE SPECTACULAR! CRYSTAL BASED SOME WITH 8+ COLORS WOW! SPECIAL THANKS TO RICK HALL! SEE THEM ALL HERE! http://biblefreak.org/marbles/web/MibID/JokerOrbitCrystals/index.html SEE THEM ALL HERE! http://biblefreak.org/marbles/web/MibID/JokerOrbitCrystals/index.html

Depending on which runs you can contact some of the run makers through other sites, and or message the sellers on ebay. Burt Wilkins is a wonderful dealer, and very helpful, great packager too. Burt's selling page: http://shop.ebay.com/bermar/m.html?_nkw=&_armrs=1&_from=&_ipg=25 Rick Hall sell directly, one of the original Jokers, he sells on ebay and newlondoh Rick's selling page: http://shop.ebay.com/newlondonoh/m.html?_nkw=&_armrs=1&_from=&_ipg=&_trksid=p3686 I have Rainbows, and Frankies, Joker III, and some others, I invested in. My signature has my contact info.

If you have outstanding Jabo's I want to photograph them. I will arrange to ship them back to you and an escrow can be setup if your worried I will not return them. I want to shoot images like you have seen here in my post over the past year. I would be happy to make copies for your personal usage once I am done. If you are and investor with any large quantity of marbles still around, please consider sending me some nicer examples for photographing, I will do for them what I have done here for other marbles. People need to see these marbles! Help me by considering much this will help the community. I really want to photograph all (or as many as I can) of the Experimental Jabo Flames, If you have seen my photography you know I am qualified, and I want to contribute to the community by continuing to produce these kinds of images for posterity

SEE THEM ALL! CLICK HERE! SEE THEM ALL! CLICK HERE!

Nice! Hidden all over the.... Lets go hunting!

Haven't written a poem in years! It was sad. But then so are the wounded solders of the marble ring, who are unworthy of the collectors drawers, and jars. Perhaps more verses will come to me. Blessings!

Sorrowful Slags gathered to sigh, As Akro's and Pelter's all said goodbye, The Handmade's shivered as Marble King's fell, And Vitro, Jabo, and Master's grew still, Together they marveled the circle was drawn, CAC's gathered to scrap and to faun, The Ravenswood's halted each shining with pride, As children in laughter cast each one inside, The weary were captured and pocketed quick, The shooters and peewees withstood every lick, As knuckles and knees grew dirty in fun, The marbles all lived in the light of the sun, Where passion and pleasure cast aside gain, Sorrows rewarded in another new game, Where marvelous magic mystically met, And Marbles were Champions until the sun set! Gathered in darkness they relived the day, When Children in laughter brought them to play, And huddled together some scuffed some worn, The new ones in envy longed to be born, Life for a marble in yon days of yore, Were never intended to sit in a drawer, Where prowlers, and glasses, and bright shining lights, Looked for the young'uns who'd never seen light, The cracked and the beaten, the battered in pride, Were left for the landfills and all set aside

The name Gobi came to be because they have the sandy colored streaks in them. The Gobi is a desert in Mongolia, China boarder. It's sands vary form yellowish to orange in places, similar the to Arizona desserts in places. The variations in the colors with the Gobi sand streaks lead to the naming of the others. The Lifesavers, reminded em of the Akro cork screws of the same name, these bing swirls I felt it was an adequate name. Looking froward to seeing and photographing the marbles. Blessings!

Frankie Gobi Storm and Black Mesa Frankie Gobi and Gobi Oasis Gobi Storm's and Black Mesa Frankie Life Savers Frankie Mini's all under 3/4" approximately "5/8 to 9/16"

Rich moves so fast when free marbles are on the table! He thought I didn't see him! Rich has an awesome setup at his place! Notice the hand speed! See Them all HERE! http://biblefreak.org/marbles/web/ebay/RichShelby/ Christmas Lights! Pretty! The MASTER at Work! TIME, SKILL, PATIENCE! That's Rich On this DAY he made these two marbles -------------------------------------

Darn, I meant to put these in the General chat section.

VINTAGE EVERYTHING IS FOR SALE PLEASE CONTACT ME MATTHEW DAVIS 5813 NEWLIN AVE #A WHITTIER, CA 90601 (562) 696-1808 HOME (562) 458-9793 CELL [email protected]

You need to fix the link, the file size of the thumbnails it pointing to full size images. They take a long time to load because of this. I would be happy to fix it for you, just et me know if you want my assistance. Blessings!

Your comments may be most apropos! Please don't feel you must have a marble PHD (none of us do, despite what some may think) to be a valuable contributor! The newest of us can help the oldest of us, see things in a new light. Just and the inverse is equal in possibility.

I agree wholeheartedly. Why even start a thread like this one? BECAUSE I believe everyone on here can contribute to this thread in a meaningful community enhancing way! The sum of our collective knowledge, EVEN when divergent or outright opposite in nature, contributes to the community so we all win, if we constrain ourselves and respond according to the Topic outline. We need to communicate our individual ideology on marbles. No debate, this is where you say what you believe, and why in response to the topics. It's the only way to educate the uneducated. Newbies can PM and email and if they live nearby, talk about marbles and these topic. And they are. But we need to amass this information together from all sources making it more valuable. Here is a for instance. "Marble Lashes" - say what? What are they, how do they contribute to the market, value, and collectability? Are they limited to old vintage styles, or do moderns machine made's exhibit them? (I know the answer to all these questions in MY ESTIMATION but what about yours?) I'm sure to some extent we over lap in our appreciation and understanding, but without the direction of discussion on the diversity, I may never learn to appreciate the subtitle or dramatic distinctions. That's why I started this thread. The conversation lacks structure, and it needs structure. Unless you all want to just founder around from one topic to another, I mean its great you got marbles in the mail and I love eye candy as much as the next person, but what I love even more is well throughout and presented thoughts and ideas on the subject of marbles and the romance we call marble collecting. I seriously think this kind of thread should be made permanent and the topic outlines adhered to. Moderators should remove the content not on topic, and thus a catalog will begin to grow. If I have the time I might even put up a marble knowledge wiki, but I just finished a 128hr two week stint, and man this week looks to be near 55hr more. I have a knack for asking the right questions and drawing out information, my Socratic roots showing. For what its worth, lets see how the thread goes.

Marblenomics (lets remember I coined this phrase) Collectability- As a Collector of 10 years, I am a newbie to these proceedings. As such I can only offer some vague generalization as to the collectability of marbles as a general class, and draw upon the shallow waters of my 46 years of experience with which to compose these thoughts. Point one should reflect upon both gender and financial means within this category. Since most collectors are male (not chauvinistic here, this is my experience may not match up with yours) in my experience, the qualities and differentiation in the meaning of collectable is pulled in different directions, at least at some level. Most female collectors see prettiness, and color are key components, thats not to say male collectors totally discount this. But many of the softer gender select colorful lots of marbles on sheer color composition, I have seen lots of very colorful vitro cats go for enormous $ sums, and without exception in my experience they are all female bidders. More recently most of my customers for the pastel colored Jabos, women again. These are just limited example, but they point out differences in the motivating factors of the genre. So it would seem that gender can and does play a role in collectability, since the final arbiter of the deciding factors has to be male or female. But the idea of color, composition, intricacy of pattern, design, size, origin, and age all contribute to collectability. One collector begins with the types he/she played with (or perhaps were forbidden to play with- as was the case with my mother), another is attracted to the value of the market and the prospect of making money in it, and a new collector is born. I am both a collector and a seller. My personal collection is based upon an aesthetic appreciation for the marbles I collect. But as a seller, I value the input of other, and need to have an eye for the perceived values, other impose upon the marbles as the arbiters to which I merchandise my wares. As anyone who has started an auction on ebay can attest to, a marble will not always bring the $ value imposed by, book, breed, or broker. Alan Basinet (marblealan) attests to this (http://www.collectorsweekly.com/articles/an-interview-with-antique-marble-collector-alan-basinet/) a marbles normally valued at $50 may sell for $5 or 1/10th. While a modern machine made may sell of $50. The value and collectability of the individual marble in question is impacted by a slew of operant values- time of day, quality of pictures, heck even the State of the Union. But the lesson to be learned is the collectability is only formed into a consensus once a group of collectors takes aim, stakes claims and begins competing to own or gain the items being collected. For this reason, marbles of the vintage class will garner a better than average price, since the science of supply and demand will increase the value of the marble (provided they don't find a dig where thousands have been unearthed and the market becomes flooded, this is very reason Diamonds cost so much, since they are among the most common of gems found on the planet, yet tens of thousands are stored away hidden from public view, to increase market value.) The marble will however also meet its highest price based upon the Arbiters willingness and means to purchase the items, and the proliferation of competitive buyers within the limited market. Over all collectability is driven by the ability and willingness to spend capitol on the items we wish to collect. For some folks as Generativity (psycho-social) sets in they look at a marble they would not have parted with in years past, over and against the legacy they are leaving behind and they part with the marble with various hopes, determinations, or objectives. After all we could be buried with our marbles, but some unscrupulous collector, or money hound might just dig then up along with us. Collecting is a kind of orchestrated hording, and as any number of popular TV shows on the air currently demonstrate, hording is a psychological dysfunction. That's right I am saying marble collectors are a dysfunctional bunch (send your hate mail to [email protected].) But seriously, aren't you just a little off? I know I am, and I have a half living room strewn with marbles, bags, lights, boxes, and other related paraphernalia all over the place. My wife keeps the balance for me but reminding me to clean up. Comon, how many fellas you know who tell tales of rooms filled with boxes of marbles. Collectability has a lot of different features, depths, and richness. It's not a homogeneous, vanilla, out of the box, one size fits all, proposition. For that reason there are great contentions within the community. But make no mistake its a community, because if we all held that one marble in the highest esteem, and we all got one kept it hidden in our pocket, purse, drawer, pillow case, flour sack, mattress, freezer, or mantel place we would be more like a cult than a community. Collectability is a concept in progress for every collector and its the individual egocentric composition which allows for an ebb and flow of different ideas in relationship to value which drives the collectability band wagon we are on.

In this interactive topic we will be discussing the economics of Marble Collecting and the intrinsic value of marbles as a whole. Our over all structure is based on the following building blocks: Please confine your responses to the following block topics, if you answer more than one topic please be sure to place the correct heading (as numbered below) before each section. This is not designed to be a definitive answers section, just a food for thought over all for the community! The topics are not arranged according to any scheme or methodology. Please try to address your answers in terms of, individual items, collecting marbles in general, and your personal ideology. The Building Block Topics 1. Collectability - what contributes to the collectablity of the marbles in general and the value of the marbles you collect personally. 2. Value of marbles - what drives the value of marbles over all within the collector market. 3. Futures - How will marbles hold up in the future (this is a speculative topic share your theory, thoughts and ideas.) 4. Historicity - How does the history of marbles, or a particular marble / marbles impact its value. 5. Vintage / Antique - How does the age type of a marble (handmade, machine made) impact the over all value and collectability of individual items, the genere as a whole, the community. 6. Modern / Contemporary - How does newness factor into the value of the marble, collectability, and contribute to the community. New here refers to ANY new type, handmade or machine made, please specify when contributing.