Steph

A 1 and 1/4" orifice seems a pretty obscure thing to simply make up. I haven't read any reviews on it yet but I expect a magazine with a name like Science and Mechanics to be more credible than, say, some of the newspaper filler articles of the time. So even if that particular "orifice" wasn't used a LOT, it sure sounds (to me) as if it existed and that Charles Turnbull deemed it worth discussing.

Here's a 7/8"-er a friend of mine has with his Ravenswoods. I used to want to argue with him just on the basis of size. But now I can't. It's blue and brown.

Will try to do my own twist on it. I do have some materials I haven't seen elsewhere. But here's a good start: Ravenswood Glass Novelty Works And of course the Ravenswood chapter in American Machine-Made Marbles is to be recommended, and will give me source info. I also have a Ravenswood monograph published by the WV Museum of American Glass.

Here's a passage from an article written about the operations at Ravenswood in about 1944. Published in 1945 in the Science and Mechanics magazine, but written when Charles Turnbull was still alive. (He died in 1944.) Sure seems to be a "we were there" account with specific info about the production of big marbles, 3/4" and up. Any reason to doubt it? I have a copy of the article, but you can read it at this page: Ravenswood Glass Novelty Works. It discusses the way Ravenswood made glass from batch and a little bit about the chemistry. Also mentions how the war was making it challenging to find the materials needed to make the glass. Pretty cool article actually. So anyway, seems pretty technical and detailed. And it discusses big 'ol Ravenswoods specifically. So where are they?

mumble mumble jealous grumble yeah, what Al said! lol. Hope you find some good 'uns!

Heard (and saw) some things which made me wonder about the authenticity of some of the boxes from the Morphy auction. Still some great names. The Mueller company was real. Glad to learn about it. But there's some question, for example, about whether the labels as affixed were original to the boxes. Anyone have any info or opinions on that? Comments welcome now or later. Thanks!

Check out the Virtual Kaleidoscope Museum. Van Derviele page: http://kaleidoscopemuseum.tripod.com/vanderviele.html

Yes! I can! at least some of them. Very cool! Thanks! Can even see some of the change in the way light reflects. It's uneven at the ridge. nice capture!

Nifty. And finally a facet I can see in the photo! lol Actually I have proven to myself that I can find facets in hand. But I am FAR from comfortable with them. Wonder if it's possible to SHOW them in pix in a way which agate newbies can understand. I'd heard the advice about looking at how light reflected off them. "Roll them around. And if the reflection jumps they're faceted." But still when I got some in my hand I was expecting something much more jumpy than I saw. I was thinking of something like a quilt of facets. A bunch of tiny flat surfaces all over the marble. But if I recall correctly, what I actually saw was sort of concentric rings of grinding. The reflection would only "jump" when it moved over to the next ring.

Here's to a beautiful day, and a bright new year.

Best of luck! Thanks for sharing your treasure with us for this short time! Any more thoughts on that? The pic with the size was added later. Wonder if everyone caught it, and how it factors into the observations.

Thank you EVERYONE. Nice array, Don. And really helpful adding those Wales marbles.

Thanks Gary! I think so too. Note to newbies: They have a transparent base. Sometimes in pix and maybe in hand they look like they have a black stripe. But if you look closely, that black stripe is actually clear glass. Gary's pic and Marblealan's bag have a couple of examples of that tricky effect.

Anyone have any plain 'ol vitro conquerors they'd like to show pix of, to help newbies out. Not so plain would be kewl too, but not necessary. Typical ones, and variations, all good. They're fun mibs which "everyone" has. But I don't think we have any good thread just for them. It would be cool to have one to direct newbies to. To give them an early "I can ID my marbles" thrill! Here's a bag from a Marblealan auction to start things off. Thanks!

Ron, I've been hearing that some one color ones maybe could technically be counted as Opals because they seem to be from the same glass in the same time frame. But being only one color they wouldn't be that desireable to most - not worth mortgaging the dog. (hehe, sorry dog lovers ;-) Mostly I'm interested for academic reasons. Wouldn't want to be responsible for making people hopeful that their single color patch marbles are suddenly opals. Or for a sudden ebay craze where phantom conquerors get called opals. lol. I understand that it is a private collector's name which caught on fast, and relatively recently. It's really hard to talk about a private collector's name for marbles as if my opinion matters. That's so presumptuous. It's THEIR name. But I'm me and I still have a lot of ideas. Can't help it. ;-) Things I wonder: were they made Pre-WWII, using nice pre-war glass? Or were they made Post-WWII, when wartime rationing was over and Vitro felt they could once again afford to use good glass. Structurally, I can see similarities with different eras of Vitros. These seem like serious fence sitter marbles. That's just a taste of what I'm wondering about. I'll save you guys the rest of my mental meandering but I reserve the right to continue this topic later! LOL. This has been some pretty good info so far. Thanks for the pix everyone! -s

we just might be in killer range here.

lol. glad I could help, Dani. :-) Delbert, I would love to see the patch(es) head on for that one! I wonder if it is actually an opal, and not really a helmet. I'm not sure when opals were made. But I THINK later than helmets. (Helmets are from the 1930's.) (edit: and maybe a little bit of the 1940's.) Even if they're later, opals are more interesting (to me), mostly coz I don't have as many. :-)

Here's an example from Joemarbles.com to get things started. (edit: a couple of examples) Ex. 1, Ex. 2 (I guess I shoulda looked over there more before I asked the question, lol. I'll go do that now, but still would like to hear from others. :-)

What is the range of variation of Vitro Opals? Some months back I heard something which led me to believe that I'd been defining them too rigidly. For instance, I thought they had to have multi-color patches but then I heard that might not necessarily be so. That "originally" it might have been more about the base of the marble and not so much about the ribbons. Looking for confirmation or correction. If you have an opal to show off or have some info to share, that would be awesome. Thanks!

So is this it? (what Lou posted in the test forum - oooh that is a BIG pic - that would probably be why you couldn't upload it) (p.s., hi, welcome to the board. :-)

That's a big little guy, huh? Congrats! Thanks for sharing!

Thank you everyone. Any last words before the thread gets tucked away in SH, or I think maybe the Archive now?

Chinese marbles. Not sure what it would cost to get them in general. I'm thinking a buck or two apiece? But I'm truly not sure. (and I don't offhand know where to go to look it up - don't know who sells them these days)

Gorgeous. Great info. Thank you very much for sharing.

Dangit! I was THAT close. I can't abide cats. Except for Brother, Joe, the Batweasel, Jean Ann, Kedo, Erbert, and maybe some others. Maybe I'll have better luck next time. Thanks for playing though.