Steph

Neat. Thanks for the inspiration to learn about Wolverine's marble-powered toys.

The prominent crimp looks Imperial to me. Imperials are generally thought to be from China. Here are some of mine. The white based one is thought to be Imperial. It has a lot of aventurine. Some of the others have stereotypical Imperial crimps. Different greens but your green is also right for Imperials. Mine have some clusters of what looks like it should be aventurine. I'm not catching sparkle tonight but the light is bad. (click to enlarge) Here's one from a Master box. Not mine. Supposedly a lot of aventurine though it didn't show up well in the pic. (click) Gratuitous Master photo. If we need a reason, let's say the green one is aventurine. (click)

Thanks for confirming. :-) I told someone Champ seemed to be out of business. I wanted to make sure I hadn't misspoken. Last year when I called the number I found for them it was disconnected. One of two numbers I found today is disconnected. The other has an answering machine but the message doesn't say whose number it is.

I guess we weren't ready for footballs! Nice one anyway!

Any new and/or official info about the status of Champion? Anyone know if they made any marbles in 2006 or later? Thanks.

Sorry Alan. I really messed up the whole holiday card thing. Felicia is the only one who got her Groundhog Day card in advance. Well I hope the rest of you guys enjoy your Groundhog Day cards anyway -- in 2 - 4 days. Did you know that Germans have the same word for marbles and groundhogs? Check it out. Google "murmel". this link might go there

Glad you answered Charles. I bought one on ebay last year. I paid somewhere between $5 and $15 for it. Can't remember. I think I was the only one bidding and I got it for the starting bid from someone who posted his for ID here.

A nice photo spread in a "Pic" magazine from July 1939. At this point Pink apparently still considers the Scripps-Howard tournament to be the national tournament. That's the one he donates a college scholarship to. He is already involved with local tournaments but they might not be named after him yet. (click on links below to enlarge, might need to doubleclick for full size) . . . . http://i119.photobucket.com/albums/o151/modularforms/History/PicMagazine_July1939_006.jpg http://i119.photobucket.com/albums/o151/modularforms/History/PicMagazine_July1939_001.jpg http://i119.photobucket.com/albums/o151/modularforms/History/PicMagazine_July1939_003.jpg http://i119.photobucket.com/albums/o151/modularforms/History/PicMagazine_July1939_005.jpg In 1941 a newspaper announcement for Pink's tournament mentions Ruth Lapham, the cutie from the last photo, in order to encourage girls to enter. But according to a Coronet magazine piece in 1946, Pink "goes white" at the thought of girls playing. Marbles had survived for ages, but a girl winning the national title might bring it all down, he says. I'll leave you to analyze the rest of the article ... or just enjoy it.

Thanks Mike. Sorry for the bad advertising there. It was my least favorite too. But it's mine. It was one of the first five mansions offered on ebay. I put bids on all five. That's the only one no one competed for. mica in transparent green in sheet glass form? ah, so the mica isn't just tossed in ... It's pre-coupled with the green glass. That's cool.

That's a whole lot of color !

Not weird at all. The principal players on Lizzy's board have been the harshest voices on other boards, but they use their "inside" voices at her board. It's easy for her board to stay nice. The leadership wouldn't dream of doing or allowing what they themselves did here before they left, and continued to do from time to time since Lou kept the door open and allowed them the privilege of posting. They are always on their best behavior over there. If anyone slips, there is a gentle reminder and that's enough. Everyone posting at Lizzy's board wants it to do well. Very easy to keep things nice that way. Even easier now that the people who were most likely to be bored with the restrictions have Scott's board to go to and release their more mischievous urges. lol You, Derrick, have illustrated how people who play nicely at Lizzy's board sometimes do not show the same consideration here, and even on occasion go out of their way to throw this board off balance. You are the one who posted the link here to Scott's board at his request. I know the link was posted at Lizzy's, but you know it was done with an entirely different motive. No one was inviting Lizzy's membership to a board where Lizzy's board was being trashed. You've shown some ambivalence, sometimes being constructive and only sometimes moaning, but there are people who literally only post here to say that it is going downhill. And some have attempted more direct sabotage. It was that type of damaging behavior Lou alluded to in this part of his message to Galen: Scott was blocked from posting after he hijacked two separate threads to attack Kevin. When Kevin sidestepped the first attack and the thread stayed on topic, Scott renewed his attack in the first thread and started a new one in a second. Later Kevin was suspended for responding here in a particularly unsavory way to horrible things which Scott said over there about him, and about Lou and Sue. I do not know the exact reasons anyone else was blocked. But I know Lou had reasons. It is one thing to disagree about a subject and even to lose one's temper while debating it with passion. It is entirely different to post with a general disdain for the people on the board or maybe even the intent to drag the board down. And no, I never had a general disdain for the people on the board. Someone is going to say it somewhere, but it isn't so. So don't go there. I had general frustration but not general disdain.

However, though I still believe that Lou's decisions weren't founded on what anyone said elsewhere, it is interesting to recall that certain things which have been said here have resulted in the banning and/or blocking and/or outright termination of membership of people at Lizzy's board, a board which has the support of Rick, Galen, many of those participating in this thread and most of those posting at MKA. If I understand correctly, the reason Lizzy gave the one person who enquired about the termination of their membership was something to the effect of: after reading their posts here she didn't think they would want to continue to be a member at her site. Others of her former members decided not to bother to ask why they were experiencing ongoing computer malfunctions when they attempted to log on over there.

m!b$, Rick's verison is an extreme simplication of part of something Lou wrote to Galen. Some of the things which were said at MKA reveal a lack of good will toward this board but Lou wouldn't ban anyone simply for something they said at a remote site. Well, I shouldn't say never. Maybe he would if it were bad enough. But obviously there is more to the situation than that.

This is sort of a question, or it was going to be a question, but I think I may have figured it out ... No, still a question. How much of the green sparkley stuff in the Last Dances is mica, and how much is aventurine? I was thrown at first by Edna's mention of "green mica", but now I realize that a lot of the sparkle in the green glass is reflections off of flat flakes. What color is the mica itself? Some stray pieces outside the green glass still look green but I suspect that might be reflected color. Sometimes tilting makes the green bits look closer to silver. And the Eagles have mica also? Here is my Peltier Mansion with mica. One piece caught the light great for the auction photo:

Intriguing marble. I half expected another name to be suggested. Not that I know of any. Just somehow expected it.

I'm so sorry, Ron. Take care.

Douglas Wiltraut's "Looking At The Moon" the story of the painting ...

Putting aventurine in and getting aventurine out was historic. In April 2008 it couldn't be known that it would ever happen again. These are pix from the auction which closed on April 15 at $178.

What issue are you suggesting Galen was banned over?

I think that's a bull's eye. Sort of appropriate for cupid day. :-)

Love the big bo's. nice friend.

hummina hummina hummina!

I thanked Lou for taking a stand against abusive posting. I knew he had suspended someone who went way way over the line. I think the rule against harrassment is an important one. I didn't know he had banned Galen. Does Galen object? According to Galen, the owner of a board "can do whatever he wants" and "really shouldn't have to explain why he does anything he choses to do". Well, he said that about Pete a couple of weeks ago. Does he think differently now? As to me being banned, I did shake things up, didn't I. (sorry about that Lou) I don't remember whining or crying though. I defended myself, others stood up for me, and I was unbanned.

So?

I enjoyed -- in a secular, sociological way -- how scripture was invoked to reinforce the wholesome image of marbles as a wholesome activity. Then the crescendo elevating marbles to the key to success in life. Charming. And then the commercial -- where Cornelians are said not only to be a perfect match for real agates but they're even better than real agates. It's fun to see the hype from the safe distance of decades.