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I join Mon in hating you for having such a beautiful thing. But I'll get over it. Someday.

I have the Cambridge colors book at home so will check it tonight to see if the numbers correlate with anything there. But just off the top of my head, I'd say it's more likely they're pattern numbers than color numbers. Or at least I don't think they're vintage color numbers. And cobalt yellow means nothing to me, or at least I'm trying very hard to have it mean nothing to me. In my art historian's world, the combination would produce green. But that's with pigments, not the kinds of chemicals/minerals etc. used to color glass. So . . . beh. And you can read the word "cobalt" as a reference to the substance cobalt, whereas "yellow" is just a color. Whatever the heck that might mean. Is this Art guy the original source of the marbles in question?

Mon, I think I have half of the other half of that!

Wow . . . another revelation! Sitting over here with Mon, all ears . . .

Yes -- I can see why thoughtful speculation could see the exotics as color compatibility tests, and the thoughts that can follow from that . . . very, very interesting. And it's been a while since I spent an evening with my (2 cobalt, 2 amber, 2 colorless) guinea halves. It was much more educational this time. Saw exactly what you were talking about with the frit at the edge. And the over-gathering . . . Yes, bubbles. Under 10X very tiny ones, not in clumps or trails, but distributed singly here and there in the clear base. Had to experiment with backlighting to see them, especially in the cobalt halves (one of which is pretty fractured), but once I did I had no trouble identifying them in the others. One of the cobalt halves also had what looked under magnification like a huge bubble, but when I took the loupe away it was a bit smaller than the head of the proverbial pin. Also looked for and found similar tiny bubbles (and a few big ones) in my CAC slags. From the same process, maybe? Minus the frit, I mean? Fun to see new things in old marbles!

That's painful. Sob.

Perfect sense! And fun, following along. Going home to an evening with my guinea halves . . .

I don't have any quarrel with thinking they were all made simultaneously, with the hand-gathered ones coming first, of course. The guineas and ST/SOs were beautiful, and undoubtedly caused a flurry in their (regional?) market, enough so that -- for whatever reason -- they didn't entirely stop making them when the flame / swirl machinery got going. At least, I don't think it's out of the question. And . . . experimenting with glass compatibility (all those colors! since they weren't combined with each other at Cambridge Glass) would also explain a lot, including all those guinea and cobra halves, and others . . .

Without having any deconstructed Germans in hand, I think I can comfortably agree with your hunch. I've done a lot of staring at both CAC slags (an early machine-made favorite of mine, and the only CACs I thought I might be able to accumulate) and the German machine-made slags (I'm hesitant to use the term striped transparent, having been told one time that that term is reserved for marbles with at least one more striping color added to the white-in-transparent color, and I don't have any of those). But you know the ones I mean. The white in the CAC slags seems very variable to me, but frequently it's deep in the matrix (also thinking of my pitiful but instructive 6 guinea halves), while in the main the white of the German machine-made slags is surface. Just general observations, but that's what I've noticed.

I see it too. Yelling. In profile. Receding chin!

I'd like to add my stupid question, too -- (#3): Re cut mark / seam influence (Mon's #1): I'm thinking of the mental comparisons I make when comparing CAC slags and German striped transparents . . . the CAC cut marks usually more "closed" than on the Germans. Or so I thought. Valid or not? Or maybe? (I can accept maybe as an answer).

I love these weird-colored corks!

I agree with you Winnie that not all the ones with "spidery" cut-offs are sloppy. I have a neat and pretty one in lavender transparent that I got from Alan ages ago. And thanks, Hansel -- that's the first time I've seen those "Made in Japan" boxes!

Nice. I've only heard the road-and-tunnel phrase used to describe Ravenswoods (a ribbon "diving into" the marble). Looks more apt here!

Huh? Nope, not me. Sadly ignorant in decorative arts beyond the Roman period! But I'd guess maybe late Victorian? On the verge of heading over into Art Nouveau? !880s-1890s?

And everyone, please keep going. This is the most informative thread on this topic I've ever seen. And even though nothing may eventually be resolved, the knowledge and observations being shared benefits everyone -- even those that have already made up their minds. So, as you were saying . . . (and how lucky are we to have some of these posters on here!)

FYI, in 1930 Henry Hellmers (previously at Akro Agate) became the glass chemist at Cambridge Glass, and between then and 1932, when Akro persuaded him to come back, he introduced Carmen (a selenium red), Crown Tuscan, and other colors -- in addition to making some of their others heat-resistant for use in making dinnerware . . .

I couldn't agree more!

Now you've got me dithering. I can see reasons to think CAC -- mainly the width of the ribbons and the way some flare, for lack of a better way to put it. As an aside, I have just moved a marble I've long had in my Alley box over to my CAC box. For similar reasons. Mon, I have a similar one to the one on the right in your pics, but mine's not purple. The ribbons are two-toned brown instead. But I have it in my Alley box, with matching cullet. Maybe I need to start a new box called "Alley or CAC I Don't Know! I Don't Know!"

Yep.

Some corks have such strange colors I would hesitate to call them anything but corks. I particularly like the odd ones, like that one Darla, that have colorless and colors mixed in the cork. I just got this one because it was a color I hadn't seen --

I frequently experiment with melted and cold butter! For example, I fry my turkey burgers in butter (the same butter I've cooked my onions in), but when the burger is done and on the bun I top it with a few slivers of ice-cold butter before putting its lid on. Mmmmmm. And we can talk about salted and unsalted butter. I'm an unsalted butter freak, myself. I use kosher salt separately. Fairly generously.

Yes, I think it works both ways. But what are the youngest marbles in that group? I think there are two or three that could be from the 1930s or 1940s. And personally -- and this is really just an opinion -- I think all the Troublesome Transitionals (as I have started to think of them) are probably from the (maybe late)1920s through the early 1930s. It's not impossible for them to be from a little earlier in the 1920s, either, I don't think -- if you consider that period being the transition haha between methods -- hand-gathered but machine-rounded. Then maybe all the pontil types would make sense. Maybe. As they were figuring out just the right timing and temperature for that process. Makes me have even more respect for old MF Christensen . . . And that's a great box there, Hansel!

Going back and looking at the ebay pics, you may be right, Winnie.

I agree with adding the aqua and white on the bottom left, and maybe the yellow . . .