david Chamberlain

Armadillo! David

My vote is Vitro as well. No way a Popeye with that mucous matrix (Kinda like snot!) and the colors. Some of them marbles were trying like the devil to cork like the Big Boys over at Akro. You gotta give 'em credit! David Chamberlain

Yes, wouldn't it be nice and comfy if we were able to inhabit our shell and enjoy our cloistered world of marble collecting without confronting the harsh reality that is a general blight on the marble community at large, a constant rebuke to good people on this Board who incidentally want to do just what you prefer and a serious danger to youth who will be the marble enthusiast of the future. I seriously doubt that you only want to think of yourselves. David Chamberlain

This is a fine example and also a patently obvious example. Often the buffing is much more subtle anywhere from rubbing over Levi jeans during a half hour TV sitcom to a felt attachment to a small Rotary Power Tool. As far as I've gone is the Levis route and often just to make the baby shine. The marble shown above is a walking (Oops, rolling) example of anything but subtlety. I'm sure elsewhere guidelines for determining buffing or polishing status have been posted but I'll see what I can put together as the most salient features to look for. It mostly comes with practice and a 10x and a good Mag-Lite. And anyone who cares to jump into this thread is I'm sure welcome. David

There is a sickness, a degradation and a human outrage in the marble community and its name is Marble King of America (MKA), a marble board administered by Scott Patrick. Scott Patrick espouses hatred and vomit-inducing filth in thread after thread. He regularly and in the most vile language targets decent marble people. Other marble enthusiasts (You know who you are and you are complicit) lower their own standards by participating on his board and thereby tacitly condoning his behavior. Scott Patrick is the personification of evil. In the past he stupidly left two thinly veiled death threats on my answering machine. This was verified by an AT&T tap. At the time Police Detectives in a suburb of Cincinnati were well aware of him. During the past month I have received threatening and harassing emails from Patrick. Unfortunately so far neither his email server nor his Board host have been adequately responsive to his behavior. I refer specifically to [email protected] and Yuku-Legal, resp. For the numerous people who have been subjected to his repulsive accusations these servers appear to hide behind legal niceties and require impossibly convoluted and circuitous reporting requirements. Patrick traffics on his board under the name of a venerable marble company and it would be all too easy for a computer savvy marble enthusiast minor to gain access to his marble board. This should have great concern to many parents. Does anyone know his physical address. I will provide it to Marble king, Inc. who intend to serve him legally. Contact me at [email protected]. We have a moral obligation to step up to the plate and bring this man to heel. I am asking all good marble people and especially those of you who are exceedingly adept at navigating the web to express yourselves vigorously and with unflagging insistence. David Chamberlain ALL THAT'S REQUIRED FOR EVIL TO PREVAIL IS FOR GOOD PEOPLE TO BE SILENT.

Condition would be the kicker in this lot. Hard to make a valuation w/o any info. on condition. Unfortunately most people who are selling something like this don't have the foggiest as to what constitutes condition gradations; to them they're just marbles. It does have a Pearlized Patch appearance and color-wise as well but I wouldn't bet on it or rest my hopes on it. By the way Gary, I sent two of the Sturtz books to you yesterday Book Rate or whatever they call it these days. Enjoy! David

Where does one begin? I'd not intended this morning to provide any rejoinders re. the back 'n' forth occurring here as I've something more important to say which truly goes beyond Galen's continued prevarications. But this does beg a response of sorts. I've read the full thread at MKA and Galen's purposeful choice of Griff's out-of-context remarks condemns himself not Griff. It is so patently obvious that Griff was standing up for decency, womanhood and.....why not, the American Way! You'll have to excuse me here as I've recently been influenced by purchasing some Big Little Books from the 30s/40s and included among them were Captain Midnight, King of the Royal Mounties, Terry and the Pirates so I'm a little hyped about Justice and such. I'll tell ya, Patrick's Board has about as much content 'adult-wise' as a low rent Triple XXX film. No substance/pure filth. "Open Posting for adults" - give me a break! I believe Galen says it all when responding "I certainly do!" to the enquiry, "Don't you realize that you are who you associate with?" Re. the Jabo Runs. It was phenomenally pathetic how kissy-kissy Galen was while attending a Jabo run and in his "Trip to Jabo" recap and then within the month found it necessary to respond with full negativity to my upbeat and ebullient short piece regarding Dave McCullough's marble-making accomplishments. And by the way Galen where are those firsthand, personal quotes from Dave McCullough you banter around as backing your position? I'm sure Dave Mc would find them fascinating. But even more important would you finally name names and let us know who is disgruntled amongst the many investors in the past year and a half during the approximately 22 contracted runs? I guess it's only you and you were never an investor. O.K. you've been asked to name names, provide quotes, state facts time and time again and all you can say is "Do your own research!" Awe, come on Galen, just give us one little peek into your vast accumulated storage banks of accumulated research re. this ongoing controversy. You condemned yourself in my eyes when you attempted to use Patry Denton's death to cast aspersions on Steve Sturtz and accused him of weaseling in on her marble collection. Got you there, didn't we! Incidentally, for those of you who aren't aware I was named in Patry's will to be responsible in aiding the Family re. the proper handling of her marbles. That pretty much made you the weasel in that situation, didn't it Galen? Galen, you have no honor. Let honor be both thy staff and rod. "Honor sit et baculum et ferula." DAVID CHAMBERLAIN ALL THAT'S REQUIRED FOR EVIL TO PREVAIL IS FOR GOOD PEOPLE TO BE SILENT.

There's a lot of those 1" glass marbles that have been painted some rather nicely. This one has a sponge pottery appearance. You got 'Sponge-Bobed!' Bill I agree that it's Alley or Champion. More likely Alley but..... And those CW marbles. Will they ever quit? Actually they have validity as they have been determined to be Ball Mill Balls and from the 1840s. Only problem is that some unscrupulous people got into a wealth of them, doctored them up and sold them wholesale to unsuspecting and suspecting antique & collectible dealers all over the SE during the time of the Atlantic Olympics. They do indeed have a life of their own now with no where to go buy up unfortunately. I've some myself! David Chamberlain

I rec'd either an email or private mesage from Galen this morning which after some thought I'm assuming refers to the Post I started here. He characterizes it as "showing my true colors." As usual though he skirts the subject, plays around the edges, obfuscates and generally allows himself an escape path when challenged. His usual modis operandi. He is so transparent it's pathetic. I sent the message along to Pete at Land of Marbles so that Pete could see Galen's 'true colors. Oh yeah, he posits 'Jack' to me at the conclusion of his message as some sort of Bogeyman that is suppose to invalidate my standing. You figure! .....David Chamberlain

I believe it needs to be said that today especially Griff deserves all our respect for the manner in which he has stood up for honesty, for womanhood and for forthrightness. He is the man! .....David Chamberlain

Color and pattern bespeaks Peltier. David

Thought I'd weigh in too. The 'Peerless' is definitely Vitro. I have some of those new R7G Marble kings. And the White & Green w/question mark is not Alley, I'm pretty sure (Could be Cairo). Largely Vitro selection. David

All I got at the flea yesterday was a 1940s MacGregor Talc Powder tin (nr Mint) with a great beribboned Scottsman front and back of the tin. Will give it to my friend Sharron who specializes in Scottish memorabilia and gets to Scotland 'bout every year. I've waned you about going over your quota. The Marble Police are going to be after you and with the moniker of 'Brassy' I'll be the Chief Inspector heading them up. David

Hi Bill you crazy man, Maybe sound out Phil Thomas [email protected]. He's making eight cedar marble boxes for me right now. He does use felt but he may have considered other mediums. Nice guy. Was a cpl. room down from Lee Linne at Amana. Hey, stay out of trouble. David

Mostly Master I assume? Ron and I'd been talking recently about the eyelashes on the Paul Bunyans and narrowing them down to Master or Akro. David

They're sorta unclassifiable. I think you just have to spell it out the long-way for identification assuming you even know. Like new cullet that has the appearance of old cullet would create quite the challenge without any corroborating provenance. Heck, I don't know! David Chamberlain

Yes, I've had numerous Moss Agate corkscrews and most of them have been 1". I'm totally at sea on the Ringer matter. If they aren't Akro which I can accept who the devil made them? DC

Those yellow Ringers in the last Post look suspiciously like the marble in the auction. Without the marble in hand I'd say Ringer variant rather than Popeye variant. Whatcha think?

I think we need to slap a marble quota on Griff. He should be able to work within that being a fisherman. Otherwise it's just explosive angst for the rest of us. Come on guy, release some of those! David

I'd say no on Jody Fine only because his are so easily recognizable; he and that other chap, Steven Maslach both from the general SF Bay area. Mostly I don't have the foggiest! David

Whoa! You must have to wear full protective gear when handling that baby. I cut away real fast so that it didn't radiate right through my screen! David

I've just been going through my Vacor de Mexico(Guadalahara) marbles going back into the 1980s and I just know that confusion will reign forever and forever because there is such a variety of Vacor marbles which were done with frit. For example: GLITTER, SPARKLE, ROCKY, STELARIS, STAR DUST and DESTROYER. Then there were the ones not done with frit but have a similar surface appearance but smooth: GALAXY, JUPITER and DALMATIAN. Yikes! Now these are the names that the factory provided for these marbles. Mega went and changed many names to fit the American market. Talk about confusion! The above names are straight from factory sets that were provided to myself and to Marilyn Barrett by the factory. The sets were provided with the hopes that we'd see to getting photos of the marbles in books, etc. There's a separate thread going on right now on Land of Marbles attempting to get ironclad descriptions for these Vacor marbles. Pete has been attempting to get a full Mega Marble bio. together so anyone with further info. go over there. David

Well, when those Vitro Anacortes marbles early on were commanding as much as $200 ea. you can well surmise the continuing interest in one and all wishing their marble with frit was one of the blessed ones. I sold one at what I felt was an exceedingly fair price of $100 at Amana. I probably should have kept it but in truth they don't do it for me. David

My brother just got back from a 4-5 day fishing trip with three long-time friends(45 years) and all four of them ministers. Trout wern't happening so they went to plugs for bass and did well. It's 1 fish daily I guess that's allowed. I use to tie flys early on. Have even in the wilderness areas picked up trout that were in about to evaporate puddles and put them back in what hardly amounted to a stream. I think they were grateful. My brother is a trout fisherman. One of my great joys as a boy was to see Ted Williams showing off his skills fly casting at the Sportsman Show in Boston, although I enjoyed more seeing him in Fenway. I can reel off the 40s/50s line-up. Dimaggio, Pesky, Williams and so forth! Unfortunately I'd have to nix that last photo as well! Stacy, Vacor is Vacor de Mexico in Guadalahara, the largest manufacturer of marbles in the world. Must have 30-40 machines running 24 hours of the day. I use to sit around the radio with my Mom listening to the Sox's in the 40s and we would keep separate box scores. When Mom died there was a single sentence paragraph in her Obit that said: Barbara Chamberlain was a life long fan of the Boston Red Sox. It runs deep! David Chamberlain P.S. You must know about that temporary period of friendly harassment when Sturtz threatened to name a marble Grumpy after me 'cause I was balking at marble-naming early on. Thankfully he settled on 'Brassy.' Close one!

Hi, I'm feeling some need to jump in here again. Regarding Bo's photograph which Griff posted; it lends itself way too much to bibliographic echo. There's really only the one in there with single blue dots on it that qualified as an Anacortes Confetti. 9/16" should not be generalized to allow one to assume that a 9/16" marble with confetti characteristics is the Real McCoy (meaning Vitro Anacortes). I just pointed out or meant to point out that in general the Anacortes Confettis were universally 9/16". Got that? Now the other type besides the ones with a milky matrix and single colored dots was one a mite bit larger, say 5/8"-, that was mostly clear with yellow and green frit on the surface. One is shown in the Vitro section of American Machine- Made Marbles right beside three of the 9/16" variety. Hope you're not making that hole in the ice too big. We don't want to have to fish you out. Just what bait do you prefer to ingest? David Chamberlain