Royal3

No, not all Germans have bubbles, also called seedy glass, and machine made marbles can also have them. I’d need additional pictures to be sure what this one is. It’s best to take a minimum of two full sides and two ends of a marble for a good ID. It looks like it might be a coreless swirl - three outer bands with nothing in the center with light blue glass. I’d also have to know the size and see the full condition to hazard a guess on price range.

Re “Hi! I'm new to marble collecting, as far as identification is concerned. Can you recommend a good resource for me?” Marian, if you’re looking for a good book or two on the subject I’d recommend American Machine Made Marbles by Dean Six (and others) and Marble Mania by Stanley Block as good places to start - both have lots of pictures and are still pretty relevant, though machine made information especially is constantly being updated as we all learn more of our past. For website links - besides this great board source here, of course - I’d highly recommend marblealan.com, and glasmurmeln.com. The latter site is operated by one of this board’s members, marbleconnoisseur, and has some excellent info as well as pictures of some of the world’s most beautiful marbles. My other recommendation is to find the next marble show nearest you and go, preferably a day or two early, and you’ll learn more there in a short period of time than you’d believe possible. It’s getting harder to find a comprehensive list of such shows, but here’s a link you can check: http://www.kingofalltechnology.com/marbleshows.htm If you’re interested and you care to share what area of the country live in I’m sure we can find an appropriate show for you. It’s well worth if you’re serious about collecting. Good luck! It’s a fun hobby, with lots of fine folks, always something to learn, and best of all - beautiful marbles to discover.

Hansel, you find the most unique items! I think Craig is right, it was likely a prototype.

Those are steals for <$10!

It looks like a really unusual Helmet to me (I love that shade of blue,) but Ron did Vitro glass ever get that seedy? Of course that could be one reason why it was so unusual.

Great old repurposed safety match holder - every backpacker/camper probably had one of these. I just wish I’d kept mine!

Still kicking

Thanks ”Ronernesto” 😉 - I appreciate it! Really nice one.

Glad to see you, Ernesto!

Really interesting marbles; they do appear to be a different Vitro in construction, don’t they?

That’s the definition of a bad day for any marble fan.😩

I’ll say! Fabulous shot. Ron, is that last one a furnace swirl?

Thanks to Lou and Steph for all of their efforts, and thanks to Jason for stepping up!

Sorry, Steph - it was a thumbs up - I’m not sure why it squared out. Coulda been the browser I was using. Anyway, yes, it was good, and thank you, back at ya!

👍🏻

There are more scams than I care to think about. How do these people sleep at night?

Really well done. Never heard of the artist before (I cheated and looked it up - Mike Wallace.) Thanks for the post Vance!

Not a clue, John, sorry. Have you tried Ron’s site? It’s tedious to work through, but you might get lucky. They’re both classically constructed marbles, so maybe they’ve been around. https://www.glasmurmeln.com/HOT--ar--ar--ar--Identification-guide-for-contemporary-glass-artists.htm

I loved your thoughts about marbles disco, that’s why I called them romantic. That’s what I was trying to express! Ouch, Steph...

Much more...romantic. The machine creation process is so torturous - unbearably hot, unbelievable noisy, sometimes chaotic, dirty, filthy - did I say hot and noisy? - but at last these bright orange glowing orbs come rolling along those augers, then finally clamoring down chutes to begin revealing their beauty in the buckets at your feet. Then, at last, it’s the silence of the mibs.

Interesting question Dave. Occasionally some of those tiny filaments in Akros are UV reactive too - not sure about Pelts, not my thing - so I always wondered if they were some kind of precipitate from the batch, intentional or serendipitous.

You are correct, Vacor Stardust, and they do come in various colors. Here’s a good link for Vacor ID, in English: https://www.billes-en-tete.com/liste_billes.php?lang=en

I’m glad I introduced you to it Vance! I don’t have a great pic of their logo, but here’s a b&w version:

Sorry Vance, my weak attempt at humor obviously missed the mark. “Caw, caw, caw” was a reference to the Akro slogan “Shoot straight as A Kro flies.”

I’d agree.