Steph

Here's some of the Heaton cullet I was thinking of. Four swirl marbles globbed together. The white glass came from Vitrolite cullet (as far as I know). And then these four marbles didn't quite make it, so they became Heaton cullet.

Slag glass was made by the manufacturer. Some or all of the swirl glass could have been bought from other sources. Pretty sure they'd mix up the transparent separately -- maybe with their own mix or maybe from other sources, and then they could add the crushed cold cream bottles into that. Cullet could be used on both ends at a marble factory. They could use it to make marbles. And they could create their own cullet in the process. Vitrolite was a company which made glass products, and their cullet went to places like the Heaton swirl company. So Heaton could put Vitrolite cullet into their furnace and makes some swirls and then could have spilled some of the their molten glass or let marbles get stuck together in clumps, and that's how you get Heaton cullet. If you see Akro cullet, that's rejected glass at the end of the Akro marble making process.

What maybe unusual condiment selections do you enjoy? ... this question is brought to you by the soy sauce on my tuna noodle casserole.

Yes, Galen (lstmmrbls) is a slag guy who also has lots of swirls -- and knows how to get to the point. And yes, this other one of yours is a good example of a slag. The structure helps us in a big way though -- that's a Christensen Agate structure. And some other companies have very distinctive structures on most of their slags. One problem comes with Akro, which had a more randomly swirly slag before they switched over to corkscrews and patches in 1930.

^^ that! What you're seeing is how hard it is for us to describe it. Just gotta encounter them many times ... and even then there will be some on the border where you can't swear whether they're from an early slag company or a later swirl company. The white in the slags will usually be a purer, solider white. And I'll say usually ... it can get wispy on slags, and it can be solid in swirls. One thing about slag glass versus swirl glass -- slag glass is (usually?) made from "batch" -- where they stirred up the glass with a special recipe. And West Virginia swirl glass is (usually? often?) made from cullet. Rejected glass from some other place. Maybe from a factory which made art glass. Maybe from cold cream jars. For example. Sooooo ... yes ... there are some which are slam dunks ... but there are some ... like your dark one ... which can be hard to tell.

Here's some of what I had in my miscellaneous swirl box

Here are some miscellaneous slags. At least I have thought they were all slags. I stored them together. Now we've got me wondering though about a couple of them. Still trying to remember where I put my tin of miscellaneous swirls.

ha! you can play checkers with it. You turn it to the fancy side when someone says "king me".

Maybe instead of injecting we're thinking of whether there are separate pots of color. Slags had the white and the color in the same container. Unfortunately, I _think_ many swirls also had the colors mixed in the same container, and that I've never understood. I _think_ some had different containers for the separate colors. Ooops, I still don't have pictures. I will not return without them! I hope.

Need more comparison pictures! I can probably get some today -- finally finished the project for the 11-year-old -- but I know other folks' pictures will be better!

candy!

I'm having trouble finding the words. Greatly hoping someone else comes in with more pix or more words.

The base can be deep transparent purple on both the slags and swirls. The brushing color makes me think of a slag but where the ribbon tightens up and seems to dip into the marble at the bottom of this shot makes me think of a swirl. (When there's a single ribbon darting around, definitely a swirl.)

A LOT more examples would help this thread. Hint, hint.

Swirls are post 1930, we meant to say. Here is a photo Dani posted once with slags in the column on the left and transparent swirls in the column on the right. Usually we can tell by the ribbon shape in the transparent swirl. Sometimes if the ribbon is acting funky, it's the glass texture which will give it away ... hopefully. Sometimes it's still not easy to tell. The transparent swirl will _usually_ have a distinct white ribbon. I'm reaching for the right word to describe the white in a slag ... not finding it ... but it just seems to be more thoroughly connected with the base glass in the slag.

Piece of trivia which _some_ reading this page might not know --- "Fire Opal" was the winning name in the Prize Name contest of 1930. Supposedly the winning name was what corkscrews were going to be called after that. But obviously that never happened.

What is that?! A fancy pincher? European?

I agree that it looks like a swirl like a WV swirl company would make, not Akro. An Akro with those colors would probably have a little bit more corkscrew action. Does the base glass glow under blacklight?

Zaboo has an ad ... somewhere ... which shows Fire Opals. I'm not finding it right now in my saves.

Yeah, not sure between slag and transparent swirl. With the diffuse white, slag is a possibility. However, if it's just sorta randomly distributed, that points to Akro rather than CAC (assuming slag). If transparent swirl, then that's a later marble. Slags ending in early 30's, swirls starting in early 30's.

That'd be my guess. Is it smallish?

Akro Moss Agates can have yellow/tan bases or white bases. Akros are known for long seams and cap-shaped patches.

I'll try to remember to hunt mine up. Today I have to do something for an 11-year-old, and I'm not sure how long that will take. I'll put a big sign by my computer to hopefully do it tomorrow if no one else does. We have this thread which had a lot more examples ... but then Photobucket killed most of the pictures. http://marbleconnection.com/topic/6790-mostly-pix-heaton/ I'll have to pull out my Heaton box and see if what I'm remembering is as close to yours as I'm thinking ....

I got lots of marble books when I was starting out and they led to a lot of mistaken ID's -- so they can be good intros but feedback and adjustments will still be needed. Which you can get by bouncing guesses off of us, of course. American Machine-Made Marbles which has Johnson as one of the authors is a good book for history, and it does have many good marble images. https://www.amazon.com/American-Machine-Made-Marbles-Schiffer-Collectors/dp/0764324640 When I was starting out I found Bob Block's price guide to be most useful, but even that had some errors in it which made for a _few_ awkward moments. https://www.amazon.com/Marbles-Identification-Price-Guide-Robert/dp/076433994X/ (Well, this is the edition I used: https://www.amazon.com/Marbles-Identification-Robert-S-Block/dp/0764315749/) We're starting to see more books dedicated to just one maker, such as the new Peltier book. https://www.amazon.com/Peltier-Glass-Marbles-Johnson-Biffany/dp/0692777822/ I'll add a good word for the latest edition of Everett Grist's Big Book of Marbles -- the edition Lloyd Huffer helped with. This one added a lot of good marble photos, with many pages on various West Virginia swirl companies. https://www.amazon.com/Everett-Grists-Big-Book-Marbles/dp/1574326929