Steph

I've been taking a spin through my picture files looking for a particular ad. No luck with that yet but I stumbled over this pic which cried out to be posted somewhere. I thought it was from ebay but don't see the little ebay watermark. Wish I had a bigger copy but here it is! Nifty set of ball and claw thingies for a stool.

Anyone have any unusual marbley things to share? Been awhile since we had an "extras" thread.

I guess it could be argued that the people EARNED their right to be treated with respect, and given the benefit of the doubt. To a large degree I believe that. However there are some behaviors which I think are wrong, no matter who does them, but they are excused when some do them. And to get along, board members just go along.

This comment about questionable behaviors is NOT about Alan. Please no one go tell him I was piling on him! :-)

Cees, you are correct.

There are some people whose auctions I wouldn't dare post, even for a relatively innocent question.

There are some chinas I questioned from Marblealan. I wrote to him about them and he said maybe I was right because lots of other people had asked him about them. I know some of the people who wrote because we talked about our thoughts - in private. Alan posted more like them later so maybe he remained convinced that they were authentic.

I still wonder about those chinas sometimes. For all I know, Alan was right that they were old. I just wonder. I have an acquaintance who collects ceramics whom I've been toying with asking about those - in private.

I mention these details now simply to say, "you are right" that some sellers are treated with great respect even when believed to be in error while others are criticised with no holds barred.

What an interesting assortment, Lee, er Marble Wife, er what would you prefer to go by. :-)

could someone please explain the controversy over california sulphides. i checked the archives but couldn't find anything. thanks, jack

Hi Jack. :-)

Right or wrong, this is what I was remembering -- not so much a controversy over California sulphides. More a controversy about modern sulphides in general.

Fairly close - except that people were paying thousands for them as recently as last Fall, IIRC. Most handmade people new they were suspect as soon as they came out. I handled two of them several years ago.

They were "sponsored". Some of use know who the sponsor is. An artist didn't just cook them up on his own.

Are you thinking of the marbles made by Norbert Geitner?

Stalling with some pix from Lloyd which Sue posted in an earlier discussion. This is one of the marbles pictured in Baumann's book and one of the marbles studied by ACRN.

Party Hardy!

My info will be from Baumann's Collecting Antique Marbles and from a scientific study reported in Antique & Collectors Reproduction News.

I'm not aware of any particularly strong controversy surrounding them. I thought that they were generally believed to be modern.

Anyone have a pic?

It'll take me awhile to get my notes together on this. I'm on my way out of the house now so can't even start yet. I definitely won't be offended if someone scoops me with the facts.

Later gators! -s

I have some good material on these. It'll take me a bit to dig it out and summarize. I was hoping someone who knows the situation better than I would beat me to the punch.

But I do have some good info. I'll be back.

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?

The marble glass is tapped from the furnace or tank over the marble machine through an adjustable orifice, which controls the diameter of the finished product. The stream of glass is cut by part of the marble machine called a shear which shuttles from one side to the other of the glass flowing through the orifice so that the piece cut off drops to one side or the other onto the parallel, spirally-grooved rollers of the marble machine. Seven sizes are made: 1/2", 9.16", 5/8" 11/16" 3/4", 1" and 1 1/4". Two orifices are used; a 3/4" for marbles up to 11/16" in diameter, and a 1 and 1/4 inch orifice for all larger sizes.

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

hmmmm i tried and only got this,can you see them?,bj

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!

Here's my favorite hand faceted. It's a Carnelian with some very nice effects and kind of rough base faceting.

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!

It is a tough size to find in a CAC box

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