Steph

Another option is sending them to Marblealan if he's still taking new consignments. Then you don't have to worry about pix or grading or nuthin'. But since you asked ... I used to grade super safe. Few of my marbles made it to mint when I listed them. But then I got feedback from a respected buyer and learned that what I was calling NM+ he called "wet mint with a couple of subsurface sparkles". I got a little more feedback from a couple of other people who thought the marbles they received were mint. So I felt okay to upgrade a little. Then I ran out of marbles to sell.

Very interesting! $28 per lot. $4000 + the joy of frustrating the marble community. (They've made it pretty clear from board posts and some of their item descriptions that that's part of their motivation.) Now let's factor in the cost of materials and the price of ethics.

Pretty sharp. Is it wood?

Wow. Gorgeous effect.

Happy Birthday Windy!

Yep, probably the same one. I'm 100% confident they make their own fancies. I think they might average about a buck apiece on them in the auctions. Not making a fortune, but if they have the kilns handy, maybe they find those few bucks good supplemental income. Reason I wondered about these was the lack of more obvious globs, plus the fact that back in 2007 when they first came to my attention they used to mix up new ones and old ones in their lots. So, since these browns look a little better than usual, I wondered if the seller might have been using real brown ones to help the fake chinas seem more legit.

That type has been dug at the Sistersville Alley site. Question is how they got there? Were they cullet from somewhere else? Did Alley even have patch making machines? Last I heard, that was in doubt. From Sistersville, Ron's photo:

Last year I would have said Alley. But now it's in question whether Alley made patches. How close is the gold part of the glass to that in your avatar?

Here is one of the recent offerings of a seller who has sold some clearly dubious bennies in the past. What do you think about these?

Updating with some of their February 2011 offerings: It's hard to choose which ones to pick. I've pared it down to these. Focusing on the greens because those have improved quite a bit but other colors have improved also. They don't get anything like the money they got for the eagle bennies. One of the lots of 3 greens sold for $17.50, including shipping. Quick check of the final bids for their current completed auctions show a lot go unbidded upon. When they make the sale, some of the lots go for almost $2 per mib, while some go for less than $1 per mib. So, not a high dollar racket. Let's have one more. Are these browns real?

Enjoy one of their recent lots: http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=250778788486 They really have improved remarkably since 2007.

Any benningtons they're selling, assume they're fake. They've been improving their art over the last few years. Two years ago we noticed they seemed to be dabbling with a lined china type of marble. Looks like they're still working on that. (This is the person who brought us the eagle bennies in 2007.)

Not a bad idea. I understand wanting all green. But the others colors could provide interesting accents.

That's a nice response. Well done.

we're sneaky like that.

Jupiter! Neat! Thanks for the pictures! Nice marbles.

Me gusta Cracker Jack!

Hi Howie! Nice to meet you! Hope you have a fun time here. I would like to see your grandpa's marble. That would be cool. See you later. Steph

The bottom one looks familiar. I'd guess American on that. I have a similar color combo in my Champion box. I vaguely remember that color combo attributed to another maker also.

The Vitro lookalikes. That fella yesterday was acting like we were pulling the rug out from under the value of his conquerors by calling them Japanese. Just got me wondering .... how does the value of one of those conqueror lookalikes compare to the common conqueror? Neither would be very valuable. Might the Japanese marble actually be worth more?

I really have no idea how much people who buy Wales style marbles would pay for them .... How much are they worth?!

Hi Joe. Welcome. I'd recommend Everett Grist's Big Book of Marbles, by Everett Grist and Lloyd Huffer. The Fourth Edition has been freshly released. Another good book is American Machine-Made Marbles, by Dean Six, Susie Metzler and Michael Johnson. It is heavy into historical information. For older handmades, Baumann's Collecting Antique Marbles is a classic. There are some classics by Bob Block but some of that information has become dated. For example, in some cases, different terminology and additional information about makers have come out since their publication. I wouldn't discourage you from getting them, and maybe someone else would put them high on the list. This is just my $.02. There is also a classic by Stan Block, called Marble Mania. Does that have a new edition? (muttering to myself while I go look that up) Yes, it does. I haven't seen the new one yet. There are lots more marble books, including specialty books on cat's eyes, Jabos, ceramic marbles, etc. I don't mean to leave anyone out. I just picked the ones I thought might be good first buys. I look forward to seeing others' recommendations. Disclaimer about values given in books. It's very tricky to get a handle on marble values, in case you're getting books to help you assess your marbles instead of just identifying the marbles. I've used books to estimate marble values for sale and received quite the lesson when my $2500 marble sold for only $80 on ebay and my $50 marble went for $5. .

Is this person's coins fake like their benningtons are? A lot of the coins they sell are billed as errors. Got me wondering if they were real errors or somehow doctored. I have no idea whatsoever what would be involved in that kind of fakery and am not making accusations about these particular coins. I just wonder ...... http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=250777312438 http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=250777307927 fwiw: they have been given negative feedback in the past for using chemicals to artificially tone authentic old coins. http://toolhaus.org/cgi-bin/negs?User=youhave2bid2win&Dirn=Received+by

That's great! Wouldn't want to put it down.

Bump. Just two hours left. Some beauts.