ann

Me either. But it was something odd, I think, like white or green . . .

Jeeze, now I have to go and look at my 3 Windex mibs . . . oh shucks.

Wow. Maybe being awestruck isn`t really off-topic . . . in any case, I`m glad I didn`t see that. I was at the launch of Apollo 13, awestruck by all that power, and feeling the earth tremble and my bones vibrating. Of course we didn`t know then what would happen later. My closest experience to yours was being in school, as a sophomore in college, at Florida State`s study center in Florence, Italy, on November 4th, 1966, and experiencing first hand the overwhelming flood that has since become legendary. I`m still amazed that you actually saw the Challenger explosion. That would be really hard to get over, I think.

You just took me back to being awestruck in my childhood in eastern NC, William. I was maybe 5 - 6 years old and dead asleep when my parents came into my bedroom, started shaking me awake, carried my uncomprehending self downstairs and bundled me, in my robe, into the car, and took off. I was too groggy to even imagine why they were doing this. They drove outside of town, to a very dark road, pulled off, snatched me out of the car, sat me on the hood, and said "Look!" I looked up into the night sky where they were pointing, and saw great curtains of red light pulsing and waving, over half the night sky. I think I should have been terrified, but I wasn`t. I was awestruck. It was a shocking and wonderful feeling. After a little, they explained what I was seeing, and the experience is as clear in my mind now as it was then. So I know how you felt!

Those marbles you let go of were spectacular, Mojo - I started collecting with the old Germans so I feel your pain. You were a hero to sacrifice them for your family. And I`m very happy to see you have some nice marbles left! The hunt begins again . . .

I have a couple of banded lutz swirls, but not a PINK one . . . oh dear, oh dear, oh dear . . . And not that I don`t want all those other Pelts, but I keep hoping to find a Blue Galaxy owned by somebody who doesn`t know what they have - before someone else does. That`s the only way I could get one in my price range!

As an art historian I know there are only three too, the ones you named. All other colors are made by mixing those together, like blue+ yellow = green. But blue, red, and yellow - you either have them or you don`t. And yes, I agree that black and white are colors, too. If you mix all pigment colors together, you get black, for instance; mix all light colors together, you get white - although we`re more used to seeing the opposite, a prism breaking white light down into colors. Very glad you brought this up - I have the same vague memory of a reference to another primary color, but I don`t remember where. And maybe this is kicking over an anthill, but you mentioned Popeyes, so I might as well go there too, since it`s late at night! There are occasional mentions of "blends" with Popeyes and sometimes other marbles, and normally I ignore those mentions. It works that way with pigment colors, like blue + red = purple, but it doesn`t work that way with glass colors. They don`t mix or blend like that. Sometimes they react chemically with each other, usually producing a dark thread where they meet (I think this is where the "burnt" colors, like a "Burnt Christmas Tree" come in). When it looks like a blend on marbles, especially Popeyes, it`s actually a slight overlay of one glass color over another, producing the illusion of a blend - but that`s all it is, an illusion. So when looking at a Popeye that might be a "hybrid," or 3-color Popeye, you can tell by first seeing if the thread of a third color is physically where a blend illusion would take place, and if so, is the third color one that would be produced by an overlay of the two main colors. For example, if a thread of green is between the blue and yellow of a Popeye, it`s probably an overlay illusion. If that third color is a thread of orange between the blue and yellow, it ain`t an overlay = hybrid Popeye. Or if the third color is a primary color, which can`t be produced by an overlay, = hybrid Popeye. For example, I have a red & green Popeye with a thread of yellow = primary color = hybrid; another one is a purple & yellow Popeye with a thread of blue (primary color) running down the middle of the blue = hybrid. And so forth. My how I do go on, late at night. Nitpicking? Well, I used to get paid for doing just that! My apologies for what might be taken for a rant. It`s not meant as one, I swear! I better go to bed now. Good night . . .

Oh, nice! I`ve only seen a double rainbow maybe twice in my life!

There you go! Check out the earlier pages of this thread and you`ll see it`s not limited to non-marble collectibles. Eye candy is everywhere! Landscapes, clouds, star fields, etc. Bring `em on!

I think the greenish one is Alley -

I don`t have any firm opinion, except for a while I collected this type to see if I could figure out anything about them, but all I really concluded was more than one company made them - although not Akro. Ron will confirm, but I think they were made by Alley, Heaton, a few by Champion (according to Dave McCullough), and some others. The short answer is basically I don`t know who made it, just a range of companies. Ron probably can tell.

Don`t worry - most people do when starting out with marbles. I think you have to see oxblood in person before you can get an idea about how it really looks. I know I did.

Take a look here through the Archives and Steph`s Study Hall and read back through the pages of IDs, and you`ll start to get a handle on the various styles, and what marbles collectors are looking for - I think you`ll enjoy it.

Know what you mean. I got hung up for a while on old sterling serving pieces (I needed them for Thanksgiving) and I like your salt spoons, and the dish you have them in. S. Kirk & Sons made some really nice silver, a little harder to find than some others . . . oh no, don`t get me started on that again . . .

Most are relatively new, except maybe the clays and the glazed blue one (a bennington) at the bottom in the last photo. I don`t really see anything that would be of much interest to marble collectors, but I would wait for others to comment. They may spot something I don`t.

Nice!

I wouldn`t get rid of it either. I still have mine.

Oh wow - they`re great. Are they yours?

It`s just that I started collecting marbles - exclusively - with the old German cane-cuts and then fell under the spell of slags, by wherever and whoever, years before I started collecting machine-mades! So I may have the jump on you on the oldies, but I`m still learning to tie my laces on the machine-mades. There, you probably have the jump on me, since I`ve only really studied & collected a few makers -Peltier, Alley, Akro (but not the patches), and VERY modestly CAC, mostly slags. I`ve never really collected Master, Marble King, & other West Va. companies, although I`ve bought some from time to time because they were pretty marbles. I have collected chinas, cat`s-eyes, and special-run JABOs, but not obsessively, like I did with the old Germans and slags. That`s still where most of my marble knowledge is, and where my collection is still the strongest. And I`m a retired art historian, which means I read and study things that are of interest to me with a certain . . . obsessiveness. It`s a habit I`m incapable of breaking, by now. And my very first marble-curiosity was turned to the old Germans and slags for quite a while, before anything else. So I can certainly run my mouth when the subject comes up! Otherwise, still on a learning curve. That`s one of the things I like about marbles - the search for marbles and information is never-ending!

Yep, copemys - It`s an old German slag, hard-to-find, a type once called "transitional" and/or "Leighton." It`s not either. Transitionals are now, in general, regarded as hand-gathered and machine-rounded like MFC and the Peltier Cerises. All marbles assigned to Harvey Leighton (American) are now known to have melted pontils like the one pictured above. The German faceted-pontil slags are very hard to find. Some have traces of oxblood, and others have what collectors call "egg-yolk." I think they were only made in small numbers towards the end of the 19th century or the first few years of the 20th, as some German marble-makers thought to compete with American marble-makers who were making the newly-popular slags. The German firms went on making their cane-cut marbles, too, in larger numbers, through the 1920s or so, excepting the war years. By then American marble-makers were dominating the market because they could produce attractive marbles far more cheaply than German companies with their labor-intensive cane-cut swirls. I`ll check on the dates for you - I don`t remember whether they can be narrowed down or not. Altogether, you have a very nice (and scarce) marble!

They sure will.

Take a very close look at what appears to be a slightly rough pontil (first pic) and see if you can make out any facets. They`ll be hard to see - use a raking light and turn the marble to see if you can see any. Just on what I do see, It may be German - it`s certainly nice.

Hard to say - all the Champion furnace swirls that I have (and have seen) are in the orange/red/yellow/purple or just "dark" category. But don`t let that deter you from buying this marble if it interests you. I`m pretty sure the price will remain reasonable, and that you`ll like it when you get it. In the end, that`s all that matters. Maybe someone else has a furnace swirl more like this. See who else chimes in.

I have Bluebirds for the summer, but have never seen a Scarlet Tanager or Indigo Bunting here. We do get lots of warblers in the spring, and hoards of Cedar Waxwings in the fall. I also envy you for your Red Breasted Grosbeaks. We do get the yellow ones in the spring. All enough to keep me sitting out on my back steps year-round! [By the way, I love your sister-in-law`s camo!]

I don`t see what I`d be looking for in a Leighton, on either of these nice slags - but tell me, is where the pontil would be, in these last pics, perfectly smooth (it looks like they are), or (offchance) does the first one have tiny facets (you can only see them by turning the mib in your fingers under a raking light)? If smooth, I`d say the first one is a very nice MFC, and the second a nice Akro.