ann

Oh, thank you, thank you. No wonder I didn`t know what it was - Blue Tits are an English bird, aren`t they? I`m strangely relieved. I already said thank you, right?!

Didn`t need a bag. You could tuck a lot of mibs in that hat.

I`m procrastinating almost everything. Weeding. Cleaning. Laundry. There`s a little whine constantly going in my head: "I didn`t retire so I could do housework."

Just found this! I`m with him ^^^^^! Steph, can`t you make bumblebee come back and tell us what that freakin` gorgeous bird is????

x 3. I have one of these in my Alley box.

I see your point, too, Jeff54, but it still bothers me when I see how far around the marble the red stretches. However, I`m not a patch devotee (OK, I do look out for crazy Peerless Patches), although I do like a nice corkscrew, so my opinion on this one is worth less than it sometimes is!

Yes, do!

x 2

I always picture the injection thing (technical term) as more like the tip of a frosting nozzle centered in the transparent glass stream, with the hot glass colors fed into it by separate tubes/streams; you could in that way control what colors the different blades were. Akro probably only had a plain, central nozzle, and directed their color streams into it kind of willy-nilly. And what a nice result! And no, Marble King ain`t gonna tell you everything about anything. They`re notoriously secretive.

Nice slag. I lean more towards Akro. MFC was usually heavier on the white, and with a more pronounced nine. But somebody at MFC could have had a bad day . . . .

Not Pelt or CAC machine-made slag, which leaves Akro. Nice green.

I`m thinking lazy cork, too.

x 2. First is a swirl, not a slag. Second is . . . what ^^^^ he said!

A lot of modern handmades are hard to ID if they`re not signed, although some artists have characteristic styles. Maybe Alan will stop by - he`s the contemporary artist marble guru.

Ah hah! Another one!

Not sure about the first one - otherwise, x 4.

Thanks for bringing up the first cat`s-eye thing. A Closet Cat Fancier

I cave. Better pics, it`s a sparkler. Not a particularly colorful one - might be stretching the 5=color thing - but nontheless an Akro sparkler.

I`m so happy for you - and only a little jealous! Your learning plan sounds good to me.

"The more I learn, the less I know," could be the official motto for marble collecting . . . and it`s good to keep reminding ourselves of it!

Most helmets have a transparent "face." Sometimes transparent colorless, sometimes transparent colored . . .

More like slapping and clawing.😆

I wouldn`t fight with you about that.

In the wild in a jar?? That alone is rare! I don`t think anyone can have too many sparklers, myself. My only quibble with this mib is that, traditionally, to be called a sparkler it has to have five or more colors; I just don`t see that here, nice as it is.

Are all those really sparkly - silvery ones micas, or am I just seeing multiple reflections from the lighting? A better look at those would be nice, too. Second that on the green/black one.