david Chamberlain

I think cross-dressing would require in the mix a femme gender bender marble type as I'd posited in a Post a couple back in this thread. Possibly the Dynamic Gay Duo! David

Cool. Bananas have sort of been the unsung marble in the marbledom mix but well deserving of full fledged cat's-eye respectability. David

Unfortunately MarbleClueless you are requesting this of the totally computer clueless. Anyway, that's why I tried to provide as much of a verbal image as possible. Use your imagination. Make believe this is the Radio! And yeah, in 20+ years I haven't spotted this item but then I've never been drawn to the peripheral marble items unless it was documentation. A lot of my friends know me as a paper ephemera dealer. Thanks for looking. David

Got this as a gift on Wednesday. Made by RCR Mfg. Co., N.Y.C. Red wooden handle attached to a 10" diameter double-railed wire with original red cardboard insert with advertising promotional info. + illustration of boy and girl operating the device. Basically operates by centrifugal force and allows you to spin a marble(or more than one marble) around with a rocking motion. There's a rectangular cut inset with an ol' style mesh incasing three 3/4" marbles. Held in place with a cardboard backer that's stapled. Original staples. The marbles have never been taken out. Blue, Yellow and Green clearies but shades of the three colors that look more Italian than USA (Just an observation not a country ID). The boy has one heck-of-a head of curly hair. I'd guess 1950s. Earliest being the 1940s. Instructions printed on the advertising card. It does state: First remove the card then place marbles on tracks. Never seen it before! Got an opinion? Wonderfully goofy item. Any thoughts on value? Someone wrote in pencil on the back of the card '39.' I suppose it could easily have sold for 39 cents originally. Ever see it before? David

Yo on the 'bird.' I wanted to make the marble a gender bender but couldn't come up with a femme fatale marble with the right coloring. Of course Poison Ivy from the Batman 'Hush' DC series is a possibility and I identify her with the Jabo 'Hip Hop' marble from the Last Dance Run. David

Maybe a Marble King Green Hornet cross. David

I would provide full confirmation re. buying at marble shows and the added plus that most of my buying was for resale and I was always immensely pleased at the friendly prices and the marble fellowship. David

They were basically riding on a winning name.....'Agate.' Ipso facto, numerous marble types were likened to real agates. David

Well it appeared to be given diminished importance in the Thread so I thought I'd 'scare-up' some respect for it. David

I'm sure there are more collectors today buying. It just stands to reason considering how much the web has enhanced visibility and participation. More marbles coming out of the woodwork as well due the heightened interest in marbles. Maybe somewhat prejudicial but I look back on the earlier years as purer, simpler, less hype....you name it. In the main I've always found marbles priced in books to be undervalued. Granted my take on the Popeye Box with limeades, lemonades and silver oxbloods belies the point but there are always exceptions. Heck numerous people were complaining about Larry & Marlow's values in their books on machine-made marbles, some even suggesting that they low-balled prices purposely so that they could still buy relatively cheaply. I disagree! I think it's a toss-up when it comes to book values and as is suggested in practically every marble book ever written with prices you need to use your own good sense/judgement and factor in what accumulated knowledge you've been able to garner in whatever brief experience you've had in marbles. Personally I like to get a handle on the marble market by occasionally picking up a Marble Auction catalog w/Realized Prices, of course, I make mental adjustments here and there due to the fact that often prices are skewed by bidders with deep pockets. I was priced out of the Running Rabbit Auctions early on when Danny & Gretchen Turner were running it. I'd have loved to have had their client base! I've been out of the marble show scene since the Fall of 2007 so I'm a little rusty on what's happening there although I have 'feelers.' For age comparison I am 71. David

Definitely photographed from space! The one on the right looks scarily right. David

And Dave would be the first one to tell you that this is the case. He regularly attributes his success in creating beautiful marbles to a Higher Power. David

Let's see, someone had just previously indicated that a pee wee blue latticinio might garner $60 to $175. I believe I was just giving it a different angle. I would be more inclined to side with Paul Baumann's statistics (2004) wherein his percentage figure for a blue latticinio crossed with it being a pee wee puts the possibility of acquiring one off the charts. And if you want/need one you'll pay for one. Just because the buying population in an eBay Auction for a marble of similar properties doesn't have an appreciation for the chances of getting one of these marbles or isn't aware of their rarity doesn't mean that it is of any less intrinsic worth. I guess I'm not all that influenced by the general eBay buyers valuation of marbles. My attitude is "Thank you very much but no thanks I'll just tuck that marble away." Then, I don't sell on eBay or buy for that matter. David

Of note: In Block's 1998 book MARBLES IDENTIFICATION AND PRICE GUIDE he gives a pee wee blue latticinio core a value of from $225 to $450. If two alternating colors, say Red and Blue the multiplication factor goes off the charts. I'm quite familiar with these values for high end latticinio marbles once having one that had Blue, Red and Yellow. You tend to do a little research when you have something like that in your hands! David

I would have to say that Galen nails it all around. His lucid machine machinations truly put the lie to any manipulations. And while I agree that it would be easier to fake something like the Exotics and numerous glass artists have offed similarities I do consider the Exotics legit based on my personal (in many cases face-to-face) interactions with many of the principal people associated with them. David P.S. Another point. I can easily accept that a marble might have gone unnoticed as numerous other and similar occurrences have been the order of the day in marbles. There may well have been a few that arrived on the scene prior to the larger find but I would imagine they were just ID'd as some neat hybrid type and tucked away in a Pelt collection. Heck, in 1987 a major find of Ravenswood marbles was turned up in a WV warehouse and it brought into prominence variations of the Brown Ravenswood marble that had not been given any hoopla prior to that time. These things happen all the time.

Yes, condition is more of a forgiving matter in antique hand made marbles. That I will agree. And I think Ron has provided a generally agreeable wrap-up in his concluding remarks here. Re. $100+ handmade antique pee wees I have to disagree. I have seen incredible collections of hand made pee wee marbles that defy imagination and not just standard pee wee Clambroths or standard pee wee Naked Ribbons, etc. At one point Landon Daniels was carrying around a case with something like 30+ handmade pee wees and most of them would knock your socks off. All of them well deserving of premium prices. Like a pee wee latticinio with red an blue, a Clambroth with at least 4 colors, a Ribbon Lutz in colored glass, a pink based Banded Swirl.....just let your imagination go and you'll easily see how $100+ would be valid. Actually $300+ for many. Not to be confused Landon also had a fine collection of pee wee machine-mades that were equally spectacular. I agree that there are still a lot of relatively common Divided Core, Solid Core and Latticinio Swirls roaming about that do not deserve premium prices just because there are 1/2" or less. Clearly this Auction has been an object lesson all around. David

And assuming to the contrary that the bid was legit it would mean that someone was willing to pay an average of $383 for each marble where over half of the onionskins and larger swirls had dings and hits and with unknown condition for the Sulphides not described that can only be assumed to be common. Whatever....clearly it's a wild and crazy world on eBay. I would have to say that prices realized on eBay don't have any more relevance than prices in books and this conclusion is hardly based on this one auction. David

I'm quite sure mon that Galen is not implying that they're still making them. You said this in humor I assume. It is very much in the nature of finds that once they make a splash and people catch on that it's a marble type that has generated considerable interest then they do seem to come out of the woodwork and work their way into the collectors market. I am convinced that there exists still a wealth of marbles that are yet to see the light of day and I'm sure some of them will be complete new surprises. I look forward to it. David

The wide band of goldstone is dramatic but I actually like the narrower bands that edge right up to a color and there is a lot of that. David

I'd generally shied away from older 1" machine mades, even some of the earlier Jabo 1" marbles but these make a statement. They really have integrity whereas often with the 1" marbles the swirling pattern gives out and the colors seem to dissipate. Very nice. David

Nice to see the pontil close-ups. Thanks. And they do all look fantastic and above board. David

The link is further down Pg. 1 of Marble Talk in the first Post of the WoW! Thread which is Locked but you can still get into it. David

Good Morning Mon, In a nut shell, the problem that the Exotics were presented with shortly after their arrival on the scene was JEALOUSY, GREED and/or IGNORANCE. Numerous collectors did not gain access to the marbles early on and it did not take long for the marbles to skyrocket in value once they got into knowledgeable hands. Still lesser purveyors of the marbles with their shuck and jive made-up stories about the marbles added to the controversy which will normally swirl up around any significant find. It's human nature. I don't see anything unusual about it and for me it clearly explains the sustained nature of the controversy/conspiracy. For the most part I've said my piece about the EXOTICS and I believe from a fairly neutral and disinterested position. David

I've only been active on the Boards for a couple years prior to that I was only associated with Pete's Board by receiving a hard copy of the Board's newsletter and contributing occasionally marble gifts for his Give-Away contests. But my marble roots run much earlier going back to 1989 including attendance at over 90 shows in at least 14 different states(I think maybe for anyone whose interested I should provide a brief bio. maybe in the Squabble Zone since it seems to be a catch-all). I don't think that lack of identification in the marble company literature or in original packaging lessens the viability of a certain marble. There are numerous marbles from various companies that have come into prominence solely because we have deem them important and not all of these have passed the test of company advertising literature or sure-fire bag IDing. Have to admit that I'm not familiar with what the story is regarding the Citrus Marbles arrival on the scene. Maybe someone could enlighten me. I do know that the first time I saw them I considered them knock down gorgeous. I believe that most of the marbles that have surfaced in the past decade are not the result of anyone having purposely sat on them for 60 years with 'investment' thoughts in mind or any thought towards profit because most people up until only a few years ago did not give much consequence to marbles. I would have to say that this view has changed considerable over the past decade. David

Actually the stories that were made up about the Exotics after the actual dig were far-fetched beyond any possible imagination associated with the pipeline dig. It seems that numerous fly-by-nighters who got their hand on them early-on did not consider the circumstances of the dig sufficiently enticing to hype the marbles. And in fact it was a rather dull, tedious and drawn out affair stretched out for something like ten days as is often typical of municipal operations. Of course, Carl Fisher's marbles were not the Exotics but weighted clay that would have fooled an expert.....and did! He subsequently stopped putting weights in them when it was brought to his attention what people were doing with them. I am one of those small group of people who went to considerable pains to 'investigate' the Exotics although I have never owned or sold or profited in any way from the Exotics; to that extent my stance regards them is somewhat neutral. David