Steph

hmmm, at two inches plus my vote would be Vacor.

Cat's eyes have "vanes". Yeah, I know that especially when looking at cage style cats the term "vein" seems to make a lot of sense. The cage style cats are a later development though. The word "vane" comes from the blade-like appearance of early cats, like the blades on a rotor or a weather vane. Individual vanes can have more than one color within them. And then of course some "cat's eyes" have a splintery structure which defy a vane count. if I understand correctly

Love the green base one! the red and bubbly one is cool too. But the green might be harder to find. :-)

What can I say? I'm glad I won. It's sparkly and deep and fun and sparkly. and I can't stand the sound of the glass marble touching the glass scanner so I'm abandoning that! I'll try again with a camera later. :-)

Vitro did make six vaners which look a lot like their four- and five-vaners. by the way and for what it's worth. not sure why it's come up here. i'm probably missing something.

Thanks Kev. yes, tri-color on the last. imho.

What Dani said. :-) And yes, your later observations about the base came through in your pix. I estimate the top is from the 1940's. The bottom from the 1930's. The top is a tri-color agate type. The bottom is a moss agate type.

Two different marbles imho. I'd guess 10 years or more separation.

Here's a neat little "article" about when "steelies" appear to have been a new-ish concept. At least using ball bearings as marbles may have been a new idea. Makes sense 'coz it wasn't long before that when Martin Christensen invented his steel ball machine which made ball bearings affordable for things like bicycles, and for boys. (Martin sold his ball bearing machine patent to investors in January 1900.)

LOL Bo you so bad!

Here's one little thing to give the seller the benefit of the doubt. Someone who speaks German and only knows a little English might not recognize the word "pontil". A dictionary probably wouldn't help them. In ordinary English a "pontil" is an iron rod used by glassworkers for handling the hot glass. It may seem obvious to us collectors but it's a bit of a stretch to jump to the scar left on the glass when you break it off the rod. Someone unfamiliar with marbles or uncomfortable with English might not guess it. It's a sort of marble collector slang.

I like contests! LOLOL ! Thanks again to Carole and Lou ! My new Dennis Richardson arrived in the mail today. I wish i wish i wish i had a useable camera! When I pulled the marble out of the shipping box, I see this lovely blue green. Yeah, I saw that in the contest pic. So far so good. But then when I turned it over, I almost fell into it. Is that what is called a "vortex"? Uh, yeah, I guess that would be what Lou said. LOL. I don't read so good. I'm going to experiment with the scanner this weekend to see if I can catch the depth. Did I mention it's lutzy! uh, I guess Lou said that too. mebbe one of these days I will learn to read.

And it's here!

I got a notice from ebay that one of my "favorite" sellers had some new listings. man, why doesn't she change her i.d. to at least make it so people have to actually poke around on ebay to find her new fakes? exhibitionism? eneeeway, this is too easy. I think this is my last fling with this gal. if any of you have been keeping up with pavcraz you know he's still out there but I've been good about ignoring his gems . . . I think I can be strong here too. (lol)

I see it! good job! my pleasure, glad I could help.

kewl, thanks duffy! this is kinda the start of my semi-dateable MK collection. nothing else to compare it to in hand. many of the mibs are translucent. maybe transparent inside. not sure. I'll have to check more closely.

Picasa? I'm not familiar with that. Do you load your pix straight from your camera to there? Do you have a Windows computer? On mine I save a picture from the computer screen by "right clicking" on the image. I choose the "Save Picture As" option to download it. I usually save to my Documents folder, especially if I want to upload it again soon.

There's an address. no zip. Here's side two.

It does say to email them if you have questions. Anyone wanna see what they say about the origin? I'm not gonna. Just wondering if they know, and would disclose.

Has anyone else bought a bag mostly (if not only) to be able to ID the commons they can't quite bring themselves to give up on? I have a small tray full of mibs I haven't been able to give in and call Vitro. I bought these to compare to those! LOL

p.s., nothing personal about the image choice. Well, nothing personal in a bad way! I actually hoped you'd like it. I chose it from my file of cat pix. I LOVE cat pix. :-)

Hmmmm . . . it worked for me. Why don't you save this image to your harddrive and try to attach it. We know this one is a good size. It would make a good test pic.

Hmmm, I haven't tried to follow Lou's steps. I'll try that on a smallish image and see what I think about them. In the meantime while I'm testing, are your pix wider than an average computer monitor?

Here are my new Marble King "all-reds" with a couple simple akro patches tossed in for good measure. at least that's how I think some would be id-ed without the bag around 'em. Doncha HaTE commons? Here's a shooter version of the style. (not mine)

love the akros. rest not too shabby either. :-)