david Chamberlain

Hard to fathom where 'right or wrong' would have a bearing on the transparency of the vanes. David

It is a killer real photo postcard. Do you know what the occasion is at the Four Corners? Real early. Out of curiosity a postcard of that caliber what is it's value? I know it's decent but I'm a little out of the loop. I really do know postcards, maybe appreciate more than know. Have collected various subjects, locales, etc. in the past. Most of my postcards unfortunately are still in California. David

You know, I'd win this but I'm going to keep the score to myself and let someone else win 'cause that's the kind of guy I am. David

What ever happened to a simple thing called 'reputation?' David Chamberlain

Going to have to ask someone who knows glass but wasn't it lucky that it happened. Sure adds a whole new dimension to some of those relatively less than exciting cat's-eye marbles. You have to understand, there are cat's-eye marbles and there are cat's-eye marbles. There are some astounding collections of cat's-eyes out there. Patry knew cat's-eyes. Pinx most definitely does. I pride myself on at least having respect for them. A lot of people still haven't caught up with what has been created in the area of cat's-eyes and it amazes me. Oh well, that's fine; it's kind of neat to still be a comer! I haven't talked with Rolf Wald in a while and I really need to. I'll ask him. Busy week. Couple doll functions that I've actually had to prepare for. I swear, there is no canned Pumpkin in Albuquerque and I think the problem is state wide. According to Smith's/Krogers they have none in the entire state. I checked Costco, Whole Foods and Albertson's and they were out as well. It's an ingredient in the dogs mix. Might wind up ordering some from out-of-state! David

Akro. David

Specifically in the Fishing section of WAL-MART. Other than that it is probably time to prioritize! Personally I have many on doilies. Gawd only knows what that says about me! David

I don't know 'pop' you've writ a credible scenario but I'm going in on a wing and a prayer, counting on faith and good works combined. David

I'm with you Mike. David

Geeze duffy, you're making it almost insurmountable for the Saints. Nothing like dashing the hopes of us less than prescient prognosticators. I'm hoping for a wellspring of nostalgia from Archie Manning harkening back to those days when his heart was with the Saints. It's time for some deep-seated faith in the rightness of the cause. I believe that past history can be surmounted. It took ten more years after my mother died in 1994 for the Red Sox to finally reign supreme in 2004 and it brought tears to my eyes. My brother and I saw to it that her obit had a paragraph that stated: "Barbara Chamberlain was a lifelong fan of the Boston Red Sox!" David

I'd without a second thought to it go 2-stage on the 1st marble. The 2nd marble actually looks like a triple ribbon and I love your coined expression "finned". You would absolutely love Stan Block's book on SWIRL MARBLES (2001) Schiffer Publ. I was looking through it just the other day. David

Those Buddies look like bonafide Ravenswoods to me. David

Makes it all the more damnably frustrating that you can't easily contact the buyer and bring him/her up-to-speed. eBay needs a Marble Consultant on paid staff. I'm beginning to think that this area is probably one of the least understood and most open to either purposeful or unintentional misidentification. David

I pledge allegiance to all New England teams but my sympathies are with New Orleans. My baptism in N.E. sports was sitting around the radio with my Mom in the 1940s while we kept separate box scores on the Red Sox! David

And it's exactly what I love about black glass amethyst. David

Some place I have the depth of the dig and location written down but for the life of me I can't put my hands on it. David

The yellow one I think is Champion. I have Champions very much like it. David

Clearly an honest mistake and I'm inclined to believe that the marble is for real and signed by some kid 'back when' as sort of a possessive thing. Unless, of course, the red lettering has continued to smear recently! David

Very interesting! No, I am not familiar with the Grey one. But all those others were uncovered in that legal Fall 2007 dig at Akro. They were determined to be from around 1920-1922 based on the location they were found. Some of them are especially nice and when back lit and even nicer. I've a couple boxes of them I made-up and used Mike Johnson's Akro crow stamp to decorate the top of the box, o/w I have them fully identified and the box is clearly new in origin. They look so nice in a group and they have serious age. David

Truce is fine with me. Things aren't really going anywhere. David

I've studied Bogard and I'd have to go with Ron on this one as not being Bogard. Nothing I have is quite like it. But as I'd said above this marble is exceptional for being half red transparent and the other half green transparent or translucent. Maybe foreign. Looks like cheap glass. Hopefully I don't get slammed for calling foreign glass cheap glass because I consider many/most of the Vacor marbles well made. David

You rarely come across pure black. Interestingly in the Ravenswood find of 1987 there were some 1" opaque black marbles that came along with all the other marbles in that lot including 3 sizes of beautiful Ruby Reds(9/16"+, 3/4" and 7/8"+), the Orange covered 4 pg. advertising flyer(in quantity), Paul Bunyans(a half doz. varieties and variations), and such. David P.S. Oh yeah, some of the Vitro Anacortes caged cats that appear black are black and that was with new batteries in my Mag Lite.

I'd pull them and only sell them as a set o/w you get creamed. Or maybe wait 'till that eighth one turns up. I've never especially gone for the vane variations so much as I have for the aesthetics of exceptional cat's-eye marbles yet there are a lot of cat's-eye enthusiasts that hold stock in vane variations. Marlow especially encouraged this in his book and he prized the unusual vane color combinations and the manner of their distribution within the marble. I recall that he was really stoked over some 6 Vane, 2 color, 3-3 varieties. I've only seen a very few myself. David

Hard to see where this absurd challenge has anything to do with my response to your derogatory comments about the majority of West Virginia swirls. But when coming up short it is often the response of the befuddled to confuse matters and sidetrack the issue. David

Well I suppose I could have slipped a notch or two on that one because I do regard highly the very recognizable and identifiable marbles produced by Vacor otherwise I wouldn't have given them sufficient consequence to write about them on numerous occasions. I think though that on my way to my 50th college reunion in Maine where I'll probably be giving the alumni an hours long presentation on MARBLES* I could detour and provide Scott, or Bill or Harry (Marble Mansion) with some pointers on the considerable importance of West Virginia swirls. David *28 minutes of which will be Joe Streets DVD on "How to Make a Marble."