I'llhavethat1

Got a chuckle out of the clever title (whether it was intended or not). From the pics it looks Alley to me.

Good topic, here are a couple.

A couple I still have

Yes.

Solution: With handmades, polishing typically opens up the "ends/pontils". A titanium pen to scribe a P in that area would identify it as polished. And as far as Stephs comment re: "Most of the positive feedback about polishing that I've been aware of in the past has been because there was one much-loved man who was doing polishing and people wouldn't want to hurt his feelings...." I don't quite agree with that. Leroy did a fantastic job and I can't imagine it was an easy one. I know he took pride in his work for good reason. I'm not a huge fan of polished marbles but if you had an example that was beat up and wanted to let the beauty shine through (and say you'd been collecting for ~40 years and never seen another one like it), he would be the guy you could trust to get it right. At least in my experience anyway.

For what it's worth, a gray non-textured background is usually what worked best for me (and my clunker of a 5MP Kodak, lol)

Superball

Stone/Agate would be my guess based on the pics as well. Are they heavier than glass?

I have one with similar colors that somebody once told me was Champion so

Don't feel like you need to hesitate - throw it out there, if a differing opinion comes up it will lead to discussion and we'll all learn. I agree the left one is handgathered, with (what appears to be, from the pics) a very different than normal cutline.

^^my initial thought as well. Definitely handgathered, and that color green had me thinking that way.

Those would probably be some of the better popeye patch examples I recall seeing.

Haven't heard of a cypher marble before, is that a collector term? What are the sizes? The pontils look different than what I'd expect on a vintage German, but it's hard to tell from the pics. A background with less "texture" should allow your camera to focus better. There were some similar looking handgathered marbles that came out more recently from Bulgaria. Nice Clambroths in the first pic.

Not seeing any oxblood, and the one @ 1 o'clock is probably not Akro

I see it now. Sandwich glass? Any markings?

ooo, that's nice. Is a bowl (of a different sort, lol)?

Condition isn't good, if that's what you're asking. Looks to be a couple bricks, which is somewhat ironic, since they got their nickname from being in that condition (and look like a brick). If that's a Pelt in the top Left it's a good size

I've seen similar colors on a run of Akro's leading up to oxblood, and I don't want to be the guy continually asking what it looks like backlit (ie: is it a green base?)

Yeah, I don't know much about them either. Spongeware comes to mind but I don't know if that was related to where they were made or a regional nickname

The shed was at a homestead in Canada. The carpet bowls were probably in better condition than the shed. The lawn bowls are WAY heavier than they look. Real dense wood. The inlays might be ivory?

lol. Here's another old pic of some carpet bowls that a friend found in her shed

No problem, 23/32" is still bigger than the ones I've seen. Hey, found some old Master pics. The purple one was my fav but went MIA

Here's an older pic, I think the larger ones were ~3/4"

3/4" is a big size for that type of Akro, the ones I have are ~5/8". If I recall correctly, somebody at some time dug a couple at the old Alley plant, which spurred the conversation years ago. Definitely not a Master. Awesome marble.

Yeah here too, any white based corkscrew (to me) is a corkscrew. Two colors (other than white) makes it a bit harder to find. but If anyone has a third column, second row, I'd love to see it.