Steph

I do respect your knowledge. However, I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that in the 1800's aventurine was used to denote a sparkley copper-based glass. Chemists wrote about it.

The eagle and tribute (last dance) runs were the first where I ever heard green mica glass called aventurine. Clarification had to be made about how the term was being used because in fact usually aventurine refers to copper-based glass. At least this is usual in the contexts I have studied. Sounds like in your discipline -- would that be contemporary glass artistry? -- the definitions might be different. I can accept that. However, in some disciplines aventurine and goldstone are very very closely related, even synonymous. Perhaps it is mica which makes my green aventurine stone look different from green aventurine glass. I need to look into that. I think I know where I have stored my aventurine mineral sample.

Thank you Ray. And it's just too GREAT. The "club" of children and grandchildren of the company founders is very exclusive. It's awesome that they're so willing to talk to us. Sue ... I don't know! Doug has all those mibs so maybe he could tell, but I'm still just learning how to recognize facets myself so if he doesn't already know how to find them I don't know if I could explain it well. But I think, yes, they would have to be faceted ... wouldn't they? Look at that belt in the picture of "R. W. Walker". Can you imagine it? Standing there, holding the stone up to the belt for a bit, maybe rocking it back a forth a little, and then rotating your grip, and holding the marble against the belt some more. When were the machines invented which could grind them without facets? I don't know. Joe ... basically the fella who donated the pix of R. W. Walker and the California Agate boxes ... he made me WANT to do it. That's about it. I went in circles on Google. I went in circles at Newspaperarchive.com. I went in circles at Google Books. And then I thought I'd go in the same circles in the Google News archive, but what the heck, I gave it a try and got a break -- found the LA Times story. :-) Thanks everyone. It's been so fun. And I know Doug and Mia will appreciate your remarks. (They have the link!)

Yep, he sure says it. p. 114 of the 4th edition of Marbles: Identification and Price Guide. Well, I'll definitely take David's accounts over Block's. Do you really think that none over 7/8" had been found when he wrote that? I don't. I think he just got it wrong. An 11/16" mib which dropped out of a 1" machine? I received a few boxes of unsorted Jabos in the roughly 3/4" size. A very small number of them were almost as small as 5/8", but all of those had issues. The difference between 11/16" and 15/16" ... it's hard to see how something that small run on an inch machine would come out with good shape. I'm afraid that I do think there is a way to mistake an 11/16" mib for a Rootbeer float. How close to you think that 11/16" mib I posted above looks. I can see how someone might mistake it for a rootbeer float. I don't think it is though. I think it is more likely to be related to those "moldy mibs" or "shield mibs" that some have posted before.

Loved the bowling ball! really makes ya think if it doesn't hit you right on the head -- lol

Goldstone and aventurine are sometimes used synonymously. The mineral version of aventurine -- not sure which color(s) -- is a rare case of a stone which was named after the synthetic version it resembled. I have a piece of green aventurine stone. It doesn't look all that much like green glass aventurine, and doesn't look at all like red goldstone. There's lots of cool info about aventurine and/or goldstone floating around. Like oxblood, this is a category where the name might be used widely and in different disciplines, but potentially with significant differences in each discipline. Might be considered "common knowledge" in each discipline even though it's foreign to people outside the discipline. p.s. I've had some cool "goldstone" buttons which had golden flakes in black glass. Czech.

Alan's present 1" example. (He might have the date of production wrong, but the date has generally been unclear anyway.) an 11/16" one someone is currently selling and calling a pelt rootbeer float:

I've seen some different sizes given for them. I am pretty sure I have seen one offered which was over an inch. And it was by someone credible. Alan or Block. Both make some mistakes, but I guess I trust them on rootbeer floats or others made at Peltier that day. 11/16" is smaller than anything I've seen or any story I've heard though. 11/16" are pretty firmly ruled out whenever anyone asks about them. And they do come up relatively often. There are some possibly-foreign master-like banana-y mibs which tend to be about that size. They get a "no" verdict as Rootbeer Floats. edit: Block's BOOK says 11/16"? ?? I say "nova family" because it is natural to think of the marbles made with the novas on that day as related. It is my compromise between the purists and those who are inclined to call the whole run "novas". I understand that only one of the marbles in the run was a nova. What I still don't understand is about the other marbles besides the original 8 which are reported by credible people to be part of the extended family. Made on a later date, I gather. Wow, Galen just posted an awesome pair of pix at LOM: Rootbeer Floats. They are described as 1". They were made in 9/13/88 -- BEFORE THE NOVA RUN. edit: no they are not described as 1". They are described as an experiment for a 1" Rainbow. (Rainbow? that's what it looks like -- but looks like someone may have tried to rub the last letter out) While I'm linkin', here's David's article at MM: Root Beer Floats, Novas, and Pink Champagnes, Peltier Marble Company Here's my index to most of David's articles at MM: index. Since he's actively posting now, there are some new threads which will need to be added, such as current cat's eye threads. But those are still being added to in the main forum.

I wrote to the Los Angeles Times reprint office to try to get permission to share this whole article from 1924. First of all I wanted to simply find out if it was still under copyright, and then I asked how to go about getting permission to share in case it was. I got an answer which wasn't an answer, and then didn't hear back when I asked for clarification. So I shall share part and hope that this falls within the Fair Use provision of the copyright law. I tried to paraphrase it earlier but that was nowhere near as good as the real thing. So, that's some history of one American marble maker. The story was in part to announce the move the company had made from the rented shed where they first set up shop to a new building made specially for their growing business. Mexican (lower California) onxy was very popular in the 1920's for many items, for children and adults. And that was an exciting find. To remind you, here are some of the images we've seen before. The search started with an awesome picture of a man who may or may not be R. W. Walker. We don't know who he is. We do know he is not the father of "Frankie" because Frankie was Frank Doig Mitchell, the son of George Douglas Mitchell. The 2nd pic is Frankie at 12 or so, as he appeared in Popular Science. Then boxes the company sold. And a 1931 ad from George Sourlis. (click links below thumbnails for larger images) http://i119.photobucket.com/albums/o151/modularforms/Stone/CaliforniaAgatesFactory_b.jpg http://i119.photobucket.com/albums/o151/modularforms/Stone/1932_04_PopularScience_FrankieMitch.jpg http://i119.photobucket.com/albums/o151/modularforms/Stone/CaliforniaAgates002b.jpg http://i119.photobucket.com/albums/o151/modularforms/Stone/25OnyxMarbles_010b.jpg http://i119.photobucket.com/albums/o151/modularforms/History/1931TRACY_WELLS_No117_p224_GSourlis.jpg But the best "find" was still to come! You know me. As much as we had learned it seemed like we were only in the middle of the story. I couldn't stop there! So I did a "bit" more searching on the net and ... I found Frank's children, Mia and Doug, thanks to a poem Mia wrote about her dad. It has been fantastic. They are so nice. And so proud of their father and grandfather. We 'chatted' a bit. It was awesome. One technical point they told me is something I suspected was true -- at some point the company name changed from the "California Agate Co." to the "California Onyx Co.". Among other things, I also learned that Frankie grew up to work on the Apollo spacecraft. How cool is that? And here .... I really need a drum roll. This is just sooooo wowww... Some of the family treasures, photos courtesy of Doug Mitchell. A couple of hundred California Agate marbles, practically factory fresh. Some of the other things the company made -- gear shift knobs, the base of a pen holder set, and a decorative piece of polished onyx with one edge left rough. And the real father of Frank, George Douglas Mitchell, the fighting Irishman who settled his family in Los Angeles after WWI and started making aggies. Note there are two different styles of gear shift knobs there. One is thicker than the other. Some have the metal inset with the name Calif. Onyx. Others don't. One thing which is still not clear is what their radiator caps looked like. (click links below thumbnails) http://i588.photobucket.com/albums/ss324/CalifOnyx/Marbles001_70pct.jpg http://i588.photobucket.com/albums/ss324/CalifOnyx/Marbles004_cropped.jpg http://i588.photobucket.com/albums/ss324/CalifOnyx/Marbles005_50pct.jpg http://i588.photobucket.com/albums/ss324/CalifOnyx/Marbles012_50pct.jpg http://i588.photobucket.com/albums/ss324/CalifOnyx/Marbles014_50pct.jpg http://i588.photobucket.com/albums/ss324/CalifOnyx/Marbles021_50pct.jpg http://i588.photobucket.com/albums/ss324/CalifOnyx/Marbles008_50pct.jpg http://i588.photobucket.com/albums/ss324/CalifOnyx/Marbles016_50pct.jpg

The person with the 0 feedback has revealed enough information about himself so that I can tell it is someone who has been reported to ebay many times as a problem buyer. More than one of his ebay IDs have been cancelled. He is a real collector but .... well, he brags a lot and not all of his claims are well-founded. He bids a lot but doesn't always pay for what he committed to buy. And as a seller, he has listed at least one really neat item, and then pulled it down, and then relisted it but it wasn't quite as neat the last time I saw him list it. (thinking of a pelt jobber box -- let me see if I can find that link where Art solved the mystery for me) (here's that link) Every seller has to start somewhere, and I sure don't envy this guinea seller having to start out in the current ebay environment where he is vulnerable to buyers for whom we cannot leave feedback. Now, here's where I'm going to give everyone something to razz me about ;-) -- the subject of faux guineas vs. real. I'm not sure as many are fake as people say. I don't give the 0-feedback bidder credit for owning a 15/16" guinea. Ohmigosh, I sure don't. He has bragged about how much he as paid for glass items which I'm pretty sure were modern but he thought were old. But I also am not sure that some people haven't interfered with legit guinea sales by talking about how no real guinea would have bubbles or some particular pattern. How can they be so sure no guinea could look like that? Not saying whether I think this guys mibs are real or not. I see why people would not think so and I would love to see clearer pix. But in the past I've thought some mibs had more potential to be real than they were being given credit for. Scott Patrick can apparently make guineas real enough to fool people like me (LOL) but I'm just not so sure that some people aren't a little too quick to write off some possible guineas. I really do feel for the challenges of collectors who have invested in marbles for years but who are now turning around and selling for the first time in today's market. Confident in their knowledge and knowing how much they've invested, but possibly facing for the first time this army of internet collectors with some pretty aggressive behavior and all our "common knowledge" based on reading the same sort of threads over and over on the boards. Rightly or wrongly, I'm feeling real sympathy for this seller. The advice he got to send them to Marblealan is very very good.

The colors look very close to snowflake obsidian. But a reversed pattern from what I'm used to seeing. (used to white splotches on black. This is more like black splotches in white.)

Goshdarnit. I thought I had the auction pix of the two I bought. If I do, I'm not sure where I put 'em. Hmmm ... with the sparkle, they might look cool under a scanner. I oughta try that. In the meantime, here's a pair Alan B sold with what was described as "blue goldstone" but pretty sure it's poiple.

Too too fun!!!!

Oh yes, I got the bag in the mail today. And it is delicate. No ... it looks delicate. It is old. A little more sturdy than it looks. But it does look old. Cloudy thin plastic bag. Not brittle. One of the mibs looks clear, not a cat eye, or else the vanes are super skinny. (I don't see vanes.) An interesting variety of vane structures in the rest. Some a little banana-y. I think maybe all 4-vaners, technically, but some lie in a single plane. One definite 4-vaner has vanes with sharp edges, yet the vanes manage to look inflated, like the dried pod of a plant I used to be familiar with. Some of the base glass is aqua. Or else that's a lot of reflection off of aqua cores. Might be bottle green in the base of some but some of the bases are clear, at least distinctly more clear in comparison with the aquas. I'm gonna have to study this slowly. This is one bag I won't be opening so I need to study it carefully to understand the vanes.

Cool beans!

I'd say yes. Who can be sure about the date but 50's and 60's is the range generally given for 4-vane single-colored cats. Umm, actually, I think I see 50's given as the date on 4-vaners more often than 60's, but yeah, 60's sounds okay.

That weird gloopy mish mashy thing which Jabos sometimes do is why I thought the invention of a name like "floater" was a good idea. It's great for cases such as ones where one cannot easily tell whether a mib is an opaque ribbon in a transparent base or a transparent ribbon in an opaque base. But I can see the name reaching out to encompass the distinct transparent swirls on the one end of the spectrum and the more patchy transparent-based mibs on the other side of the spectrum. Sure it would be somewhat redundant that way. But it would be natural, and we can deal with overlapping names. We're smart. It's a cool word. It deserves breathing room to find its niche. One corollary question is whether it would apply to non-jabos. For example, there are some sorta nebulous gloopy Champs floating around. (pun intended) . Could they be called 'floaters'? would that be a good thing? an okay thing? a confusing thing? a downright bad thing? Something which could suppress adoption is if the originator or early adopters are very proprietary with it. It could be frustrating for them if it morphs into something other than what they intended. But if they keep too tight rein on it, they could strangle it and there might be no more adopters. The evolution of language is tricky. If it is just about Jabos, then the early adopters can maintain more control of the word. If it's considered a candidate for adoption in the wider marble world, then more people have an interest in whether or not it gets used and how it is used. There are different criteria for language adoption and most are not "rational". Expression is a gut level phenomenon. It'll be fun to see how much traction "floater" has over time. Reminds me of ... what is that one ... oh yeah, Vitro Opals. A cool collector name which stuck ... but I get the idea that most of us are not using the name exactly how it was originally applied -- matching up in some of the cases but not all ....... I don't know quite what to think about it. The people who coined it don't seem to argue a lot about names, at least not in my hearing. But where does that leave the name? Just stick it on the most obvious cases? but what about when people do want to stretch it in what seems a logical way, a way which might actually be consistent with the coiners' intention but isn't what 90% of the users picture when they say "Opal" .... what then? I don't know.

except at first, coz at first there's a crispy icy layer on the ice cream. I love that part. :Cartoon_177:

LOL. gloop gloop. (my impression of the ice cream in a rootbeer float)

neat ! and wild ;-)

Well, I know historically when and why marbles were sold. At least part of the time and part of the reason. I don't know how it started. It might have been a demand for marbles ... or for novelty. But in the mid-40's, it was the opposite: a shortage of gumballs rather than a need for more marbles. During WWII sugar was in short supply, gum bases which had been imported were no longer available, and people were stressed out and were chewing more gum ... until it was gone. A 1942 article said about people chewing more because of stress and strain, but before long you just couldn't get gum. I think in the early 40's some gum machines might have been physically converted to allow them to dispense marbles. In the mid-40's some vending machines were made more versatile out of the box. Nothing I saw in ads gave me the impression that these would have been permanenty designated for the sale of marbles. Marbles were one option in a changing marketplace. But I only came to this planet in 1962, and didn't pay attention to gumball machines until I had been here for many years. ;-) Here is an ad from 1946: (click to enlarge) There was an ad from earlier in the 1940's which mentioned a "cherry red" marble as a prize marble. Could those have been Flinties? No brand was given in that ad so that doesn't answer about Akro branded stickers being on vending machines, but it's sorta interesting. I think maybe I better gather up all 'my' ads and see what I have. I have another project I need to finish this week. Maybe I'll clip out ads for breaks.

How cool is this box?!!!! From the seller's description: (click to enlarge)

A follow-up to this thread, Cat Eye's With Holes On The Vane .... For the record, one day recently I had my cat's eyes out and I found my very most bubbly one which definitely had holes through the vanes not just reflective disks resting on them. It's a four-vane green cat. All four vanes have bubbles, staggered lines of bubbles. The whole effect reminds me of a fern. I looked further. I found many many cat's eyes with bubbles in the vanes. Some had what looked like bubbles on the surface but almost invariably there was at least a thin-ness in the vane 'under' the bubble. The otherwise solid vanes looked translucent there. And many had bubbles all the way through. At first I imagined all the holes came from bubbles in the base glass which shoved their way through the vanes. But if baseglass could have bubbles, why couldn't vane glass? Now I think it did sometimes. Bottom line: I have cat's eyes with distinct holes in the vanes. Seems a lot more common than I expected when Ness started her thread in February. Not a lot of standouts, but many clearly visible when I'm on the lookout for them.

Possibly interesting question: What are/would be/might be the differences between floaters and transparent swirls? I have an opinion on the matter, natch, but would like to hear what others think.

Gary, sounds like a good point about wear on the labels. PlanB, I was under the impression that the ones which said "marbles" were fakes, at least the ones with the word etched into the glass. Real machines, possibly from the 40's to 60's, but the word "marbles" was added later -- is what I've heard. This one caught my eye because it didn't have the etching. Are you aware of any of them which said marbles in etching or decal form or whatever while they were actually dispensing marbles?