Steph

Them's is beauties, R!

Classics!

Sure thing.

I know Champ has horsehair because in addition to Ron saying so, he sent me a dug Champ with it. But that was aqua. The transparent swirls are really really hard for me. But also in the dug Champs Ron sent is a blue transparent swirl which looks much like yours in color and texture. No ox though.

By texture I'm thinking of the look of the white. Nice and meaty, with a textured underside, and that little groove running along the top of the ribbon. Do you see what I mean about the groove? It's very visible in the bottom left view here:

It's in my dug champ, and I think I've seen it mentioned in other Champ ID's.

But it wouldn't be the first time I'd associated a feature with some particular company and come to find that others did it also. So, DID Alley also have the little valley running along it's transparent swirl ribbons?

Well, whether or not they did, my blue Champ swirl looks very much like yours in the colors and quality of the glass. Not as busy, but still very similar.

Your pic in post #16.

Your tentative i.d.:

Ravenswood, Champion, Alley, Champion

Champion, Alley, Alley, Ravenswood

Ron's response in post #23:

Very good on your group id,M!D$. I agree with all but maybe the last one lower right,may be Champion. These are difficult to do by pictures,due to the many different shades of green used,plus seperating the dark red from browns.

I'm reading that as Champ on the top right.

What? He said Alley?

I thought he agreed with Champ. What am I missing?

Didn't you ask about this one before? Yes, I think so, or one very similar. You tentatively ID-ed it as Champ, and if I'm reading correctly Ron agreed with that.

Sorry I didn't remember that right off. When we had that big horsehair oxblood discussion, I was mostly concentrating on the aqua examples. I didn't recall the outright blue ones.

link

Chiminey Crispness!

That's sharp!

How does structure fit into it?

Are any of Akro's moonies swirls? [edit: they were around before 1930 so I really don't know the answer to this]

Are any of CAC's moonies patch-like?

Tinsley Green

Here is the data simply copied from spreadsheet. Spacing is lost. I'll work on straightening it up. This is just to get me started.

This information was sent to me by Sam McCarthy-Fox. Here is a short bio of Sam.

Sam McCarthy-Fox is a recognised expert on marbles in Great Britain and has contributed to a number of books incorporating the subject. He has also made several television appearances and taken part in radio broadcasts. Sam is Secretary to the British Marbles Board of Control and has organiser of the annual British and World Marbles Championships held at Tinsley Green since 1977.

Sam and Julia are both honorary members of the National Marbles Club of America and The Japan Marbles Association, on whose behalf they have visited The National Marbles Championship in Wildwood, New Jersey.

They contributed to a major marbles exhibition in San Francisco in 1991 and attended the Rolley Hole Marbles Competition in Tennessee as guests of the Tennessee State Parks Department.

Sam won his Community Sports Leader Award under the sponsorship of Worthing Borough Council. This award means that he is the only qualified marbles instructor in Sussex .

The marble room in their house in Worthing contains numerous marble related objects and pictures plus some 40,000 marbles!

Note:

Please see Sam's pdf in Post #22 for a readable copy.

I have moved the information I had here to another page to still possibly work on formatting, but it's a lot of data and Sam's pdf takes care of it nicely.

Akro maybe? They look too "symetrical" for a PPP.

p.s., PPP's don't always have swirly patches. (not that I'm voting PPP on Burt's)

Interesting that you should mention the use of the name apart from marbles. It has recently dawned on me that I might learn more about sulphides from paperweight collectors. I'm not sure yet when sulphide marbles were first made. They were around in the 1880's for sure, but how long before?

In 1883, A. W. Roberts called it a "Glass Figure Agate". Other references I have between then and the 1940's range from something like that to vague things like "those glass alleys we love with the animals inside". (not an exact quote, but the general idea of what I've read)

LOL @ me because I need to stop finding more info and start organizing what I have.

Here's part of the reason I keep toying with Alley on square patches. Pix of dug examples. I think the first pic was taken by David. The 2nd by Sandy. Dunno how square that blue based one David shows is on the other side but it looks square on the side showing.

I'm sure not as many can turn out to be Alley as I sometimes seem to suggest. I'm mainly leaving the door open until I learn more.

here's one mine like the wooden ones best

Thanks Pop!

I've tried to used those boards for display. But between my jiggling and my cats' jumping, it hasn't worked out.

Thanks BJ, the more names the better. I did not know about them.

Cool pix all around, Randy. Mesh bag, dated board, instructions. All cool. (even the wahoo - that's a fun memory)

I take it the Gotham board is the only one with a date?

BJ - don't know what to say! How old was Young?

Bump with a litte update. Nothing definitive yet but I ran across a little more corroboration for the mid-to-late 30's rather than the late 20's as the date of intro of Chinese Checkers. A 1938 Popular Science article calling it a "new game" -

September 38 issue

I share your surprise, Greg.

Henry Watson was an art collector who also had a marble collection. His was on display in a Florida museum. Don't know if it is anymore. He had marbles articles in the American Collector magazine in 1942 and 1943.

ooh. I now see that Watson identified the figure marbles as having a "sulphide center" in both of those articles. Maybe he was responsible for why we call them sulphides. FWIW! LOL. Sorry to fixate on that. I've been wondering about that name 'sulphide' for a looong time.

Berry Pink supposedly had a nice marble collection. Need to look up the date on when he was publicizing that. Wonder what happened to his!

I thought this first picture was wonderful! The 2nd is a bonus.

They're from a 1941 Hobbies magazine. The November issue has 3 marble collecting articles in it. Joe Street sent me a nice copy of the three articles (and he'd gladly send a copy to you). The text can be found at his site: Marble Articles Home Page

p.s. this might be from before figure marbles started being called "sulphides". Still looking for earliest uses of that name!

p.p.s. this might be the earliest use I've seen of the name "Bennington".

Ah, thanks. I guessed wrong.

Again.

Very pretty.

Who made?

I'd like to collect closets.

But I don't know where I'd put them.

if you were asking me to join your mafia, I'd be in! LOL

um, well, I'm easing off on Mafia Wars for awhile. It'll be cool to have marble posts on my wall for a change. Might give my other friends a clue about what I see in mibs!

kool. thanks for the illus.

Let's clean our eyes out with some good guineas. Greg posted these recently:

Talking about one color on top of the other, check out this zoom. Is that a piece of frit with the blue fused to the white before it even hit the marble?