ann

Yep. Where yours is red, mine is black. I'm thinkin' I might like yours better . . .

Is that red that I'm seeing in the actual marble? (I have one almost exactly like that except for the red. With my Alleys.)

I just said something in another thread about Alan . . . >>> theme from the Twilight Zone <<< Nice 'coon!

That's an awful nice yellow, Road Dog!

You mentioned the line between yellow and amber . . . Marblealan sometimes used the word "pilsner" when getting into that area . . .

OK, OK, I was hiding under the bed . . .

We all struggle with swirls, to some degree or other.

Welcome to the Flatland!

Ahhhhh, the universe is amazing . . .

Alley. But I don't know which site. Sistersville wouldn't surprise me.

^^^ On the Steph wagon.

Cohill has all the MFC records and other paperwork, plus original box samples, so I go with him. His book was published privately, and it's heck to get a hold of. I finally got one after some years of actively trying, so they do come up every now and then. Haven't seen one in a while, though.

Yes, they can. But in that case, the machine-rounding would eliminate the pontil. (Think of the smooth, straight cuts that generally can't be felt on MFC marbles, which are all transitionals.) There would be no need for the extra step of grinding anything off . . .

Odds and ends . . .

Sounds good to me. But then you know me.

Well, some of the old ones are nearly perfectly spherical. But rather than use roundness as a first indicator, I'd say look first at what the glass itself is telling you about how it was manipulated -- for instance, you would be much more likely to get that internal tornado by hand-gathering, rather than by machine-making. Much more. Probably the closest you'd come with machine mades would be some of Akro's augers. And they used spinner cups. And if that's a ground pontil I see in the left pic of the last pair of pics -- well, that takes it out of the realm of the machine-made right there. So I hate to break it to you -- but I think you have a much better marble than you think you have! (German; ground pontil; probably 1840-1860; unusual color.)

Yup, mine's Sistersville, too.

Really good point, Alan.

The only names I've seen mentioned are the Greiners, father & son, I think, in Lauscha. Didn't they invent the marble shear? ManofKent -- do you have more info about the marble-makers in Lauscha?

Something about it, especially in the second pic reminds me of this one, which is Alley . . .

Beautiful!

Agree that it's unlikely. Even when a few are known, like in Lauscha, there were probably others working for them in their "glasshouses" that were not identified by name. But mainly, so many records (and lives, and livelihoods) were lost in the two world wars, that finding a lot of info on individual marble makers is probably unlikely. Very pretty onionskin!

I know. I always think they're going to be at least, like 12" x 12" . . . Maybe a better top pic?

Just curious -- my Cerise box didn't have dividers when I bought it a couple years ago -- what do original dividers look like, as opposed to what I can see of the ones in that example?

And a "blank side" view.