Steph

I'm probably ready to take a break from Jabos ... maybe I'll pull out my Vacors next.

thank you

very interesting!

Uh oh. This is bad. Somebody stop me. Now that I've given myself permission to stop discarding, I pull out my marbles just to enjoy them ... and what are my thoughts? "How about instead of trying to have 8 of everything, I pick the three best and let the others go?" Bad thoughts! Bad thoughts! Of course hubby will be glad that I'm getting addicted to downsizing, but somebody stop me!

That looks like a painting .... appropriately.

It's too bad that "moss agate" has become minimized as a name. Akro was proud of them.

Basically the sort is done! Done! DONE! DONE! Muwaha! I still have some JABO-ing and DAS-ing to do ... with a little bit of Sammy's Mountain Marbles-ing, of course. But now it's mostly putting them in boxes with the right ID's. *deep breath* *happy sigh* Now all my pretties are in easy reach.

My very limited understanding says that different colors of copper-based sparkly stuff went in (lutz or goldstone or aventurine or whatever it could be called) and that led to different colors coming out of the furnace -- including different shades of what we call oxblood. In the olden days they had a lot of different names for the different shades. Representing different kinds of animal bloods (which they knew about up close and personally) or sometimes less gruesome names, such as peach bloom, crushed strawberry, crimson and liver. Sooooo ... that covers some of the different opaque shades which came out. In your photo, your blue-gray is not looking opaque to me but maybe it could still be connected with the lutz they used .... and with that my conjecture and stalling ends and I wait for correction, clarification, additional info from someone who knows!

(with thanks to Darla)

I love errors so much .... good thing .... somebody needs to, eh?

Jabo guts! .... I took 113 pictures of them this morning ... so I have all manner of close-ups for future diagnostic purposes! lolol

I had boxes all over the place. And tins. And now I'm down to a very manageable amount. So I'm actually proud of myself. Even if they don't fit into two cases like I'd hoped.

Let's be Friends

your majesty

(Waiting for Josh.)

Buh bye ... these are leaving the keeper box and going out into the general population. That was RIDICULOUSLY difficult to decide! LOL

Reasons #223 and 224 not to sort Last Dances in low light. Wonder how many of these I have let escape. Electric blue ribbons. plus a teeny weeny little itty bitty bit of lutz

Here's a sample of my artwork ... from a 2004 shopping list in the "shred" box I'm working on getting rid of today.

Sooooo ... am I the only one with boxes full of 11-year-old papers which need to be shredded? I'm overwhelmed at the prospect, yet there are some fun things in there. Like some ebay records from when I was just learning about marble ID's and selling without knowing what I had. Sold 16 UV-reactive commons for $23. Woohoo! And then there were these marbles which I've often thought about over the years ... didn't know what they were then and wondered if I would be able to ID them if I ever saw them again. I'm thinking Akro. LOL. I called them "Electric Parrots" because they had four or more colors and ... well ... I liked how "Electric Parrot" sounded ... which I said in the auction description. My pictures never could do them justice ... the color contrast was ... well ...electric in hand. Under magnification they had a faint sheen over them which seemed like a metallic haze to me at the time -- but not the iridescent luster of modern marbles. So, I'll never know, but I'm guessing "later Akro Tri-Color Agate patches" because of the patch shape and the base glass. 5/8" It was nice to see you guys again!

<3 ((((Jess))))

Great story. But oh no! I guess you came out of it okay. Did you park the car high to stay out of the flooding? (good planning) Well, you have the answer to "which marbles would you save in an emergency"? I don't ask anymore, "which marbles would you save in a fire?," because the answer for a fire is "don't try to save anything but you and your loved ones." But Matthew gave you time to think.