Chordus

I was having a hard time with where to place MFC, to be honest. They're certainly one of the originals, and have some good marbles, but I feel as though they don't get as much press. Vitro is a little newer than the others if I recall, yes? Or they lasted longer? My marble history isn't 100% up to snuff, I fear. I guess I'll give my basic reasons on my selections for the top three here. Whenever I look in books or boards, Akro, Pelt, and CAC are always the ones with the biggest selections, and always the ones with the most consistently highest-priced marbles. MFC usually gets a back seat to those three, and though I don't understand why, I've just gone with it. Vitro also gets a good mention most times, but their marbles generally don't run as high. How about this: we can delete this poll and create a new one if we all come to a consensus as to what should be at the top.

People may judge based on their own criteria. You are correct in saying that different people will judge different ways, but I'm ok with that.

I've separated the companies into two groups because I feel as though most collectors tend to go towards Akro, Peltier, and CAC, while I'm more interested in what people think of the other companies. In the case of Jabo, do NOT include the limited collectors runs. In the case of all of these marbles, I'm only interested in knowing about mass-produced marbles which would have been sold in stores and played with by children.

I've got noth'n here. My Pelter collection and mind-blowingly pitiful. The best I've got are the two I had IDed here, and the flamey slag on my profile pic.

From Wikipedia: That's right. The world's wisest man, the inventor of Time Cube, wrote a marbles book. How did I not know this? Why has nobody told me? Regardless, I feel as though it's vitally important that everybody know about this, just in case you didn't already. Also, a youtube clip here. The best bit is around 2:40, which is where he devolves into his normal schizophrenic ranting.

Honestly, the real problem is neither photography nor description. The difference in the two lots is that you didn't list yours as what it was: a CAC. When collectors search ebay, they generally don't search "fantastic marble." Collectors are usually looking for something specific, and are not willing to sort through the thousands of marbles that are on ebay at any given time. More likely than anything, your lot just got lost amongst all the other lots. I don't think the new dealer is being "devious." The new description is different, but with the photos included, I don't think there's any real misrepresentation going on here. They simply relisted the item, and more people offered more money for it. Bear in mind that the new seller started at 99¢, so the $30 price was not something that he set, but rather something set by the users of ebay as well. In the future, consider getting a marble IDed here before selling it. Having a properly identified listing will help you draw in a bigger crowd of bidders, and with that, more moneys! I realize that I'm not going to make any friends from this post, but I'm just calling them as I sees them. Hopefully you'll learn from your mistakes, and have much better luck with selling marbles in the future.

Suggestion: do not mix baby and marbles

Unfortunately, as is the case in all divine visions, this one got a little bit muddled. The real vision was that of a dodecahedron, but due to the prophet's bad eyesight, he mistook it for a sphere. What I want to know is why the companies named themselves "Agate" (Christiansen Agate, Akro Agate, Champion Agate). Glass is not the same thing as agate. They're both made of quartz, but that's the extent of it. It'd be like a pencil company calling themselves "diamond" due to the graphite in the pencils.

Well if that's how you feel, I'll be more than happy to take your unwanted oven bricks off your hands. As for those posted pics, I want them. *Casually pockets both*

A sparkler with a furnace brick in it? That is so rock'n! Any chance you could post a pic here? I have a larger marble with furnace brick in it somewhere, but it's nothing too fancy. The blue ones from the jar are quite pretty, though. The marbles were all from a dig a while back. I wasn't on the dig, so I can't say too much about them, but that's the origin of them at least.

One of the jars I got this last summer was filled with close to a hundred marbles with furnace chips in them. I've got a few questions about these marbles, since I currently know next to nothing. 1) The jar was labeled "poor man's sulphides," though I doubt this is the proper name. Do these marbles have an official name? 2) The marbles in the jar are all clear and transparent-blue. Given that these were accidents (I think), I assume that the furnace pieces could show up in any marble. Are clear and blue simply the most common? 3) The only time I've ever seen a Poor Man's Sulphide marble priced was an individual, clear one (standard 5/8ths) at $15. I would consider this high, but the truth of the matter is that I don't know. What are these worth?

Did Silver Oxbloods really come with the original Popeye sets? I've never seen that before. It's not the sorta thing I'd expect you to get if you don't do machine made OR boxes. Regardless, it's a nice box to be sure. I'd do it if I had that sort of money to throw around.

Somebody's worked very hard to get that collection. Something tells me that I can't afford even the reserve price. In fact, it's possible that I'll never own that much money in my entire life. O_O

Use the camera's zoom (regular zoom, not digital). Cameras are generally very touchy when it comes to close-up photos. The zoom allows you to back up to where the camera can more easily focus. If you need to back up even further, just crop the marble like lstmmrbls said; most cameras these days will give you large photos even if you're not really close up. Also, use manual focus if you can. Auto-focus can be problematic sometimes. One thing that some people like to do is crop only the marble out, using a circular cropping tool or whatever. I would encourage you to avoid this; leave the marble in it's background. That's just my personal preference, though.

I'm gonna go cry now. *Finds a corner and sulks about how pathetic his collection is* I have a total of six popeyes, only one of which is even remotely rare (florescent base). I can't imagine how long you must have searched for these, and/or how much they cost. But I know that it's sure better than I can ever hope to accomplish.

He did a cyan/lemonade remelt that I like even more. There's only one small picture online, which he posted at: http://marbleconnection.invisionzone.com/index.php?showtopic=14645&view=findpost&p=126393 The marble is absolutely incredible, and lights up beautifully under a UV. The pictures I took of it weren't so great, so I didn't post them here.

I have a TV, but won't be able to watch. I'm with Rich... when they release, be sure to tell us where the videos are online! And if you become famous enough to get an invitation from Oprah, tell her no. The marbles community is better than that.

Pfft. Really? That marble's barely worth $150k. You're not going to get any buyers until you drop that price by at least 20%.

Oh, the slag REMELT. I misread it, and thought he was referring to the green slag. My bad, you're right. The three-colored remelt is cracked. However, I maintain that it is an AWESOME marble. I wish I had a huge supply of lemonade slags that could be sacrificed. They're absolutely beautiful when meshed together with others!

Really? I haven't seen any cracks on that one. There are a few sub-surface bubbles on the back (which was really chipped, so not too surprising), but no cracks anywhere. Even the camera didn't pick up anything.

What color combinations do Akro Popeyes usually come in? These are the ones I know of: Yellow/Green/Florescent Yellow/Green/White Yellow/Blue/White Yellow/Red/White Yellow/Purple/White Orange/Green/White I realize that there are some really rare combos out there, but are there any color combos that I'm missing that would be considered "common?"

Rich repaired a bunch of my marbles, as well as making some remelts. Some of the remelts are certifiably bad@ss, and deserve posting. The first marble here is a combination of two corkscrews. The started out identical, but were both well chipped when I got them. One was cleaved from top-to-bottom, one from side-to-side. They were remelted together along where they were damaged, and this is the result. Absolutely awesome! The next one's a remelt of three slags; one red, one cyan, one lemonade. Awesome effect, and lights up beautifully. There are cracks visible in the picture, but they barely show up to the naked eye. And this last one here is one he remelted, before and after shots. Now that the marble's in good condition, it's got a prime position in my best box. This slag is epic!

I'm pretty sure that it's Uranus. That color is indeed a pain to get a picture of, especially if there are strands inside. The inside design, is it entirely due to bubbles, does it appear to be various shades of the same glass, or are the strands clearly a separate color from the base glass? Also, what color does it fluoresce? I assume yellow, but it never hurts to be sure. Regardless of color, I've never seen a cyan marble with fluorescence, so you've got a pretty sweet find just on those grounds.

These? http://www.worthpoint.com/worthopedia/weatherbird-shoes-marble-box-akro-corkscrew It looks like you can sign up to see a price if you sign up, but that costs money. If I were to guess, I'd say that it'd be worth good money. The marbles aren't anything special, but I can only assume that the box is very rare, as this is the only mention I could find of it. An interesting piece to be sure.

The investor runs are ending? :'(