bumblebee

Similar to past "favorite marbles" threads, what are some marbles you have seen that you wish you could own? This could be a long list so try to keep it to the top 5 or so. Let's just safely assume that we all want a wet mint guinea. For me right now (all in wet mint condition of course): Big Vitro Neon Conqueror One of those purple/yellowish Canadian transitionals 3/4" Akro limeade heavy on the oxblood A truly wildly vivid Akro sparkler (saw one once and offered $90 for it but the guy wouldn't budge) 3/4" hand cut blue or green agate with tons of bullseye rings Edit: Interesting I forgot to put other types of handmades in there. I guess I'm a machine made guy through and through!

Hi @Al Oregon, the issue was my host was blocking file names that contain apostrophes as a security measure. They removed that rule so we should be OK.

@Al Oregon can you try again and if it happens, let me know the exact size and measurements of the image? Trying to think of a way I can get it to try it. Support is asking for me to reproduce the problem.

Great food for thought as always, John! That video is very fascinating and I need to re-watch it a couple of times. Based on your comments about process and trial and error, I speculate they likely spent more time during their early production of the heavily clear-based Sunbursts to end up with those earlier examples (such as what we call the Tiger Eye) with their more vivid colors and less "blending". In #25, they describe what to me sounds like a perfect recipe for later Sunburst marbles, basically dumping a lot of colored glass without control into a large body of clear glass: From here we could speculate that their earlier runs were a challenge to produce consistently, so they started mixing in far more colored glass to produce what are the more common and familiar "blended" sunbursts that rarely have clear base glass. I have updated my original patent suit link to a far superior version that contains images.

I was reading over the 1937 lawsuit by Akro against Master where it is clearly described that Master had a clear glass tank they dumped molten or gob glass into to produce (presumably) their entire Sunburst line. It's great reading and I regret not digesting it more earlier. Perhaps @Shamrock Marbles can help me here, but the very distinct Tiger Eye marble by Master appears to always have a) a lot of clear base glass, and b) orange, red, and purple glass. My understanding is these more clear-based glass Master Made marbles are their earliest marbles. Later we see the familiar brownish/fall colored sunbursts with less clear base glass. The questions I hope to find answers for are: 1. How did Master get such a consistent Tiger Eye marble? Were they simply dumping just those three colors into their single clear glass tank for a time and that's that? 2. How come so many Master Sunbursts have brownish/fall colors (presumably their later productions) and seem to "blend" more? I recall once that Rich (Santa) said that in some colors spontaneously appear under the right chemical conditions so I was wondering whether Master just dumping gobs or molten glass into the clear base glass was causing these typically brownish colors by some chemical process (rather than they were actually dumping 'brown" glass into the pots)? So much we don't know!

Painful, but therapeutic. Just discovered that I no longer have a photo of the 21/32" wet mint Peltier silver Wasp with super thick aventurine that I gave away, and I feel better not seeing it anymore.

Thanks, Ron. It really stood out in a lot of almost no other WV swirls so I'm glad I picked it up. Sure would love to have seen wet mint bags of these back in the day.

Sounds like a delightful big sorting job. Feel free to share photos here if you can for help.

So it's an Alley posing as a hand-gathered or a hand-gathered posing as an Alley?

Thanks. I've re-uploaded slightly better pictures.

This 5/8" one caught my eye. I assume it's just an Alley Swirl but check out that nine!

I've been playing with this tool for increasing resolution of photos. Results on the old Runningrabbit 200x200 photos are very impressive, although no doubt it could affect the true texture of a marble. So in the photos below, the small photos are the original photos and the bigger ones are resized and enhanced using some math voodoo.

Turns out candy "candy marbles" were quite common in the 30s and earlier, but to your point, the context is toy marbles so my assumption is it was a colorful Akro marble. Here's a story from 1909:

Do you think "candy marbles" were German peppermint types (in 1926?) or jawbreakers or?

From 19-Mar-1926, The Columbus Telegram (Columbus, Nebraska).

They have very nice eye appeal. Relaxing to look at.

I'd not seen this game before: https://www.ebay.com/itm/1969-IDEAL-MARBLE-HEAD-MARBLES-GAME-TOY-RARE-Vintage-ORIGINAL-Large-1960S-NEW/362619006394

A gentleman named John on another forum uses a method I plan to try. He uses "Cornell University" drawers normally used for displaying bug specimens. He then cuts strips of Plastazote foam that he holds down with pearlized pins from Michaels. These strips are put close enough to hold marbles in place (about 200-250 depending upon marble sizes). The trickiest part, he says, is cutting the strips straight and even which he does with a very sharp box cutter and a metal square. Though not cheap at about $85 with shipping, In my opinion the results appear to be the best way to group marbles and show as much of each marble as possible. Be careful not to drop a tray! Here are the products and links: 1012AFP pine hardboard bottom & plastazote foam cardholder/pull 1028P Plastazote Foam Sheet, 16 x 18" Edit: Also while search the BioQuip vendor, I noticed these cardboard trays which may be of interest to collectors: https://www.bioquip.com/search/DispProduct.asp?pid=1025A

Thanks for sharing the photos. I really like the unique construction of these and some of the color combos. Ironic the only one I find is goofy.

Weird. I cannot replicate it in my test. Are you still getting the error when you retry?

@Steph will know more than me about these, but here's a board link to one with the "mushroom construction". The speculation as I understand it is that Canada may have contracted and imported the colorful transitionals from Japan (that seem to show up in Canada) and then perhaps later made a similar arrangement for these "mushroom" machine made types, that also seem to originate in Canada. Is that accurate, Steph? The colors on mine sure did remind me of some of the earlier "Canadian" transitionals which tempts the thought: maybe they used the same glass formulas to make some of the mushrooms? Maybe it was the same company in Japan that made both....? But now I'm just getting too speculative. But maybe with Japan's longevity there's somebody still alive who can tell the story? Shall we raise money for Steph for a research grant to travel to Japan? 😀

Thanks, Ron. I like your practical approach to this ID.

My instinct was Alley Agate based on the solid milky white base that looks just like the same glass every other Alley Agate I have, and the flame tip construction too. But since I only have three milky Akro oxbloods, I certainly could not say that with authority. Maybe @wvrons can chime in.

Got this from that Canada lot. I posted this on FB as a Vitro, and then a Vitro ninja reminded me of the Canadian mushroom marbles and sure enough, the colors match and even more important, mine is not veneered. I just didn't get a mushroom in the deal. Love this hobby because there's so much to learn and discover. Just wish I had more field opportunities to do so. ☺️