Steph

I shall have to stop looking at the pontils for awhile. I notice something new about them each time I look. I'll just note this last observation and then wait to hear what anyone else has to say. Here it is: The green one might have more similarity with the others than at first it seemed. It appears to also have a sort of 2nd mark. The amber's 2nd mark in the middle seemed almost like a 2nd shear perpendicular to the first, but that was too weird a thought to be able to get a handle on. But it seems worth commenting on now because the green's "sort of 2nd mark" is also sort of perpendicular. It is two indentations across the line from each other..

These are 1/2" to 21/32", dug from the same dumpsite. They had larger kin, including confettis which were at least 1 and 1/8". The one with blue spots has externally applied drizzle -- dark olive -- which dips into the blue in places + one interesting pinkish red striped rectangular patch. I think the rectangle is the same material as one the bits of 'frit' in the confetti. That's what I tried to show in the first pic. Is frit the right word? That piece in the confetti is not just a simple bit of colored glass. To me it looks like fine pink stripes maybe around a slender white rod. Under a loupe I see that the pink in the patch is transparent. Hard to tell otherwise. The guy who sold them had other opaques with drizzle. Beautiful orange thin (really thin) swirl....or yellow.......or blue..........that did not swirl around the entire marble, just the upper part. Let's see, the ones which might be called transitionals look familiar in a way, and different too, but maybe that's just because I don't have much experience with them. The two smallest look like they have reverse 9's. Maybe the middle sized one also, but it's a little more globby and harder to trace. The amber has more of a ying yang looking thing where I'd expect the 9. To my untrained eye they appear to have been snipped off of punties. The green one looks the most cleanly snipped. The others look like there may have been a little bit of snapping along with the snipping. Each seems to have at least remnants of longish indented lines like the green but also a wider spot in the middle which looks like the glass might have been colder when that mark was made. Looking at them all again, I think the pontils on those three look more like the pontil on the confetti than the one on the green. (edit: I wouldn't have thought of the green's shear mark as being much like the confetti's pontil, but with the others in between, I could see them as being on opposite ends of range of variation) The mib with sprinkling of blue on one side and green on the other also had a sprinkling of pink or red once upon a time. But the frit has fallen out. It didn't come through clearly but that's what I tried to show in this next pic. This mib has the softest looking pontil. Maybe like the others and maybe a little something done to it to smooth it out. ?

yeah, terry, that would be a fun way to spend a month

Most people are. :Happy_050:

can't get enough!

I think this is most of an article on MFC which appeared in a Canadian trade journal, Bookseller and Stationer. Volume 26, which I think was from 1910. Google Books only wanted to give me one "snippet" but I tickled it until it gave me three. A complete copy of the page should be available from Princeton by interlibrary loan through your local library. (source) For fun, here is a 1900 edition. It does have a couple of references to marbles. Nothing fancy. For more fun, completely unrelated to Bookseller and Stationer or MFC or Canada, but I found it when trying to get the link for this post ;-) Songsheets published by a marble warehouse

My screen is 1280 x 1024

Cees, is this your site?!

Knikkerwereld An interesting historical page: Machinale glazen knikkers -- It speaks of the history of machine-mades in general, in American, Germany, Japan and other countries, with specific references to marbles found in the Netherlands. Their "other uses" page: Functie -- Check out the coffee-keeper-warmers, and the boring white ceramic balls from a paint factory. LOL, on page 2, bottle stoppers like Craig posted recently. It suggests that one of their uses was to stop flying insects from getting into the bottle. And then there's one totally new to me -- a codd-like bottle of ink. You could fill the top chamber with ink for convenient dipping; the marble stopped the ink from draining back down to the bottom chamber too quickly. And under the "Soorten" drop down menu, a whole lot of marble photos. While I was in the google neighborhood I followed this link: a 2005 entry at an archaeology site, it gave me the following link National Marble Tournament Site My favorite word so far from the tournament site: kinderknikkeren. Isn't that great! For translating from the Dutch: http://babelfish.yahoo.com Babelfish note: I hadn't ever translated a whole page there at once. Now I see that once you get the translation of the first page, Babelfish will also translate the links you follow. BUT (important but) there were pages at Knikkerwereld I could only get to from the orginal dutch version. Those were pages which had been linked to in drop down menus.

I thought I had that one. but I do not. Only Gene Florence's and the Hardy's. Yeah, I don't have all of Mr. Sturtz's either.

Starting with ... Champion Dug examples from Rinesmarbles' auctions:

(((((((hugs)))))))

awesome

Some of the sites I've used: Newspapers Old Fulton New York Post Cards -- Search Over 7,486,000 Old New York State Historical Newspaper Pages New York Times Archives -- Article through 1922 are free to download NewspaperArchive.com -- a premium site with a lot of smaller papers [edit: I am able to access it for free from my local library's website. you might have that option also.] Google News Archive Search -- Another way to get to some of the old news articles. I like the "Show Timeline" option. Census, etc. Ancestry.com -- another premium site. This one has a two-week free trial period. You can do census searches here. Many other records are available. I also found I could get larger copies of the same newspapers I had found at newspaperarchive.com. If the large versions are available at newspaper.com, I need help figuring out how to get to them.Toy Catalogs Antique Toy Archives -- they have lots and lots of pdf files. Many marble ads can be found in unlikely places. I found a 1914 Akro ad in a bundle of ads devoted to toys with bells in themPhotos American Social History Online -- I posted some of the marble-related images here Books, magazines, etc. Google Books -- you can get to some technical resources here. Some are full-view. Some may be harder to access but usually you'll find a list of libraries which have them.There are more I need to remember, or stumble upon again. Some Google thoughts: Going to advanced preferences on Google to limit output to PDF format is one way to get a higher percentage of historical items in your search results. In Google Books, sometimes the texts are restricted to views of "snippets". You can sometimes tease out the bulk of an article with creative use of keywords. If you quote the first or last part of one snippet, and do a Google search on that, you might be able to ease your way into another snippet, and get more material to quote to ease your way into the next. One more thing to keep in mind is that if you find only a title on one site, you might be able to find a full view version of the same thing on another site. Google Books gives only a little peek at the report on the lawsuit filed against MJ Gropper and Sons, the suit where it was declared misleading to call glass marbles "onyx". However, regular google searches come up with the full text of both the report on the original filing and the report on the outcome of the case. Oh yes, don't forget about offline options, such as major libraries. One might call or email them if one cannot visit.

I just found a new one today. Later I'll try to add ones I've used before. Australian newspaper archive Not only is this a free resource but you might be able to help make it better. I did a search for "agate marbles" and got a 1925 article which was translated as Kcal Agate Marbles. That was exciting, because what I wanted to find was actually California Agate marbles. Wellllll, it turned out that what the paper had actually said was "Real Agate Marbles". A little disappointing but still a good find. And then after I made a note of it, I fixed the translation. The site invites you to do that. It was translated electronically in bulk, and now humans have a chance to fix the little errors as they come across them.

That mica could put an eye out!

All the pelts at once? definitely not! Say you sold the Blue Galaxy separately, and only gathered your semi-rare Pelts into one lot. Say the best one in the lot would get $100 if you sold it on it's own. I hope you'd get at least the $100 for the group, but you can't be sure. Some people would lay out. Possibly because they expect the competition to get too rich for their blood. Possibly because they wonder why you would sell such nice ones in a group. Putting them together means the one who has the money for the best one might get a whole lot of bonuses. Splitting them up will let more people participate. just my opinion! p.s. good luck! I hope you do well.

Bump, in case the right eyes didn't see it before The main question is just whether Akro had White Onyx before MFC. No need to worry about the 47 others.

A few "last" notes on the company. By "last" I mean I don't anticipate making another post soon. If I find out any other little things, I'll edit this post. Note 1: Early in 1930 and late in 1931 the LA Times and a Hayward CA paper referred to the business as California Onyx instead of California Agate. I don't know if that reflected a formal name change or if it was just what the locals called it. They made the news both times because of thefts. The articles mention values of the marbles involved. The values are low compared with the 1923 sales figure in Nebraska. I don't know if that reflects a decline in retail prices, or if that was a wholesale figure. (update: I have a little more info on that. Some ads from the 1930's. I'll consider incorporating them here.) (Another update: yes, in the 1930's and afterwards, the business was known as the California Onyx Company.) Note #2: G. D. Mitchell was George Douglas Mitchell. Born in 1885 in Dublin Ireland. He died in Los Angeles in 1945. Frankie with the 3000 choice agates was Frank Doig Mitchell. Born March, 31 1920. He passed away on Sept. 11, 2001. George Mitchell is NOT the man in the photo in the original post. The man in the photo is not Frankie's father. Perhaps he will turn out to be named R. W. Walker after all. The biographical blurb about Mitchell in the December 1924 LA Times article about the history of the company isn't quite accurate. Might just be a matter of dates, but mostly it means that I wouldn't take the LA Times as the last word on any details. Note #3: The mysterious realtor in Who's Who was Max J. Baehr, a retired diplomat. His position was "dir.", presumably "director", whatever a director would do. About the meaning of "director". I remember from Cohill's MFC book that corporate titles were used differently in the past from how we use them now, so I really don't know what to think about the title "director" as used in the 1920's. Something else to look up. Note #4: 'M T' was the right set of initials for the president of the company in 1924. He was Matthew Thomas Meagher, born in Mississippi in 1869. Census records give me the sense that his sales territory in 1920 might have been the Southwest in general. Perhaps between California and Texas. In 1910, Mathew T Meagher's occupation is given as "Merchant Retail Crockery". In 1920, it is "Supt. Wholesale China House". But in 1930 he is Tom M. Meagher and is occupation is recorded as "Salesman" for an "Onyx Works". I still have some more records to check about Matt / Tom. I got sidetracked trying to figure out what happened to his family. His ex-wife Amelia gained some prominence as a health worker in Orange County. A son was mentioned in the 1910 census but not later. Note #5: G. W. McElroy is still a mystery, and I'm not optimistic about finding more info. What would the job title of an "inventor" have been during the depression? Note #6: I think there was a treasury action in 1929 or so against the company. Did I mention that already? It had something to do with rough onyx, but I don't yet know the particulars or whether it was serious, or more of a nuisance. Whatever happened, George Mitchell stayed with the company. Note #7: I've found some newspaper ads which may be for Calif. Agate items. And then I have some ads which are definitely not for Calif. Agate items but rather for a "crystal-onyx" (glass) version of the real onyx items. The "crystal-onxy" name and its variations were supposedly nixed by the Federal Trade Commission in 1930 or so, but I think one of the crystal onyx ads may be from late 30's.

This link goes to a prospectus of Shri Balkishan Agarwal Glass Industries Limited. LONG document. 218 pages. 829kb. Link file address: www.sebi.gov.in/dp/balkishandraft.pdf I haven't read much of the document. I gather that it includes background which it thinks investors or some agency might find useful. On pp. 52, 53 there is information about the manufcature of glass marbles in India. I've quoted the section below and highlighted in red the parts about glass marbles. Basically it seems to say that glass marbles are made by small businesses. Also, it gives me the idea that marble makers might not be well-documented. The two sections of text about glass marbles are duplicates. No idea why, but maybe because this is a draft document. I just copied it as is. GLASS & GLASSWARES INDUSTRY The Glass Industry comprises of glass containers and hollow wares, tableware, flat glass (including float glass sheet, figured and wired & rolled glass), vacuum flasks, refills, laboratory glassware, Fibre-glass etc. On the basis of utility, the two broad market segments of glass industry are consumer glass and industry glass. Consumer glass is further segmented into tableware and container-ware, under tableware there are number of items like tumblers, ashtrays and bowls. Tableware segment of the Indian glass industry is dominated by the unorganized sector. Container-ware is mainly bottles, jars, etc. Industrial glass is mainly sheet flat glass. There are other end-products like vacuum flask and refills, glass beads, false pearls, optical lenses and clinical thermometers. The Glass industry in India has been de-licensed however items like block glass, glass beads except industrial beads, simple glass mirrors, glass bangles, glass hollow wares produced by mouth blown and/or semi-automatic process, glass marbles of all types and ophthalmic lenses manufactured from glass blanks are reserved for the small scale sector. The glass industry in the country comprises about 50 glass units in the organized sector and about 500 small scale glass units, who together produce a diverse range of products from marbles and mirror to glass containers, sheet glass, vacuum flask, laboratory glassware and fiber glass. The organized sector in this industry consists of 10 units of sheet glass manufacturers, 10 units of vacuum flasks/refills manufacturers and another 5 units in laboratory glassware manufacturing. Although the country at present is self sufficient in every aspect of glass and glassware manufacture and production, there is a need for modernization in the glass industry, to make it internationally competitive and technologically innovative. Background of the Modern Glass Industry in India The present day glass making industry in India revolves around a range of items from bottles, bangles, beads and glasses, to laboratory glass and scientific glassware. On the basis of utility, the two broad market segments of glass industry are consumer glass and industry glass. Consumer glass is further segmented into tableware and container-ware, under tableware there are number of items like tumblers, ashtrays and bowls. Tableware segment of the Indian glass industry is dominated by the unorganized sector. Container-ware mainly consists of bottles, jars, etc. Industrial glass is mainly sheet flat glass. There are other end-products like vacuum flask and refills, glass beads, false pearls, optical lenses and clinical thermometers. The Glass industry in India has been de-licensed however items like block glass, glass beads except industrial beads, simple glass mirrors, glass bangles, glass hollow wares produced by mouth blown and/or semi-automatic process, glass marbles of all types and ophthalmic lenses manufactured from glass blanks are reserved for the small scale sector. The glass industry in the country comprises about 50 glass units in the organized sector and about 500 small scale glass units, who together produce a diverse range of products from marbles and mirror to glass containers, sheet glass, vacuum flask, laboratory glassware and fiber glass. The organized sector in this industry consists of 10 units of sheet glass manufacturers, 10 units of vacuum flasks/refills manufacturers and another 5 units in laboratory glassware manufacturing. Although the country at present is self sufficient in every aspect of glass and glassware manufacture and production, there is a need for modernization in the glass industry, to make it internationally competitive and technologically innovative. Locational clusters in Indian Glass Industry Due to historical reasons some area of the country have developed expertise in a certain aspect of glass manufacturing which has resulted in manufacturing clusters in different parts. Some of the noteworthy glass manufacturing clusters are as follows: Banaras is the main center for the production of glass beads with Purdilpur, also being known for its black glass beads. Firozabad, in Uttar Pradesh, is known for the production of glass bangles and utilitarian glassware. An entire community of skilled craftsmen is located here and is engaged in making high quality glassware. Firozabad also produces fragile and lightweight glass beads. Tanjore has become famous for traditional ornate paintings made on glass using gold and depicting deities. Glass is a transparent product made chiefly from sand (silicon dioxide), limestone (calcium carbonate) and sodium carbonate. It differs in color and density depending on the addition of several other elements and oxides.

Just a spot to jot some notes. Might be gathered into something formal. Might not. First will be about India. I've seen other things which I thought about noting then didn't. Seeing the Indian publication made me decide to start keeping track of them. My searches have been focused on PDF files recently, so sometimes the links will be bandwidth intensive. I'll try to remember to give a heads up when links go to the larger files.

thank you :-)

The ones in the picture look worn to me. Of course antique clay marbles are not always worn. However, those do look worn, so I don't understand either what your customer is unhappy about. I have no idea if reporting anything to ebay will help you avoid a negative feedback. And if you get an unreasonable negative feedback, I don't know if there is a way to protest it. I'd like to know because I'd like to get back to selling and what I've been hearing about ebay has sorta scared me.

Did I say Christensen? Well, so did they. They being the B. Illfelder & Company, "sole agents for Christensen's Onyx Marbles". The date is January 1916. Charles Christensen was head of the company at this time. What would we call MFC's now if the Christensen Agate Co hadn't co-opted the name? (click to enlarge)

Thanks. I wouldn't have thought to try that.