bumblebee

This sounds like a temporary glitch from last night's migration. You can still access the Joe Marbles site at http://joemarbles.marbleconnection.com but if you try the old link with the HTTPS it will redirect to marbleconnection.com

I have also used diluted hydrogen peroxide in a warm water bath on especially dirty marbles. It seems to pull off some of the gunk that liquid detergent does not. If you want to be a complete purist then use only distilled water so the marble surface has no hard water streaks on it.

Yeah looks like a cat-eye mishap, but very interesting.

Here's another example of agates fetching higher prices than I am used to, although I think this went higher because some bidders failed to read the fine print which said the blue agate lacked facets. That being said that black one on the right had some very nice rings on it.

Hansel are you the blood alley Whisperer? Those must have been ground in a mill a very long time ago.

Facebook is stimulating in the moment, but FB can't hold a candle to a forum like this with its 17+ years of timeless content thanks to its dedicated members past and present. Does it get much better than good citizens sharing their joy in a harmless hobby like this? I think not.

This is a fantastic tool from Google using data from their massive Google Books archive. Link to the tool is here: https://books.google.com/ngrams/ Like to about the tool is here: https://books.google.com/ngrams/info Obviously I could not use "marbles" for this example because marbles would include usage for statuary and architectural marble.

I am curious what "Italian Marble" marbles were in this ad from the March 1, 1928 Waxahachie Daily Light? I have found a California Agate or two but cannot recall finding any mystery "marble" marbles next to German agates except for the much older "blood alleys". My hunch is it was a limited import of some sort of plain milled stone marbles.

Yup...his other one was too but this was the killer.

Next time buy it for me and I'll pay you a finder's fee. Actually I double-clicked my picture and had the option to keep the original image aspect ratio, so I checked that. Funny all these years and I never had to do that. I just pasted these in from the eBay listing originally.

Yes, he's really nice. I did buy a pale smaller one off him that was a bit unusual though not a killer. Also got a 1 1/8" German handmade for $22 that seems like a good deal for NM. Won't know until it's in hand. Agate definitely not egg shaped. Looks normal here. Try refreshing your browser?

Bummer I missed it. Seller has no more like this. Check out the black and burnt orange and then the light bullseye. Anybody seen one like it before?

Yes looks like a Tri-Lite to me. I once got a jar of all Tri-Lites and a number of them had weaker colors than usual. Even had a couple with very little red.

Haven't asked her but they sure look 7/8" to me? Yes I think that second one may have gotten its vanes goofed which results in the gorgeous flowing pattern.

Most of her marbles seem to be late 40s, early 50s and common but these large cats caught my top. Darker one looks like a Vitro hybrid? What about the more colorful one?

Yes, Vacors surprised me. I once got rid of many, many pounds of them...silly me. I do enjoy the shows of course but to me it's always been the thrill of the chase, just like treasure hunting but with a bigger chance to make a score. I have met a couple of collectors who seem to have no end of new scores. I call them marble whisperers.

I sometimes wonder where marble collecting is headed. I have not been to the shows lately to get a feel for any newer generation of collectors. I have no market evidence to support this but I think fancy handmades will continue to grow in value as wealthy antique collectors discover and covet them. I think fewer new people will collect machine made simply due to the diminishing supply in the wild. I haven't found a true keeper marble in a year at least. What do you think?

How about this one? Another seller:

Thanks, Steph. Doing that thing you do!

Shrug! I'd nickname it a green ghost and give it its own special case. Maybe the intrepid @Steph can intuit its origin.

Great work. Very similar large flecks of AV.

This one definitely looks like a mirror clean surface but construction wise, just like mine. There was some talk ages ago about these being maybe MK Dragonfly marbles but those have the MK construction from what I can see. I'll dig mine up later and take close-ups to illustrate my point.

I have a few but the surface of mine aren't as smooth and pristine as my other Masters. Mine almost felt more like foreign made. Maybe I had something by a different maker?

eBay fees and now much higher shipping costs means I haven't sold in ages. Doubt I will again unless I make some huge score I need to offload.