Steph

It's possible but I don't want to press. Nancy shared a lot of pictures of a whole lot of Alox items with me: kites, shoelaces, ads inc. one for marbles free with shoelace purchase, factory photos, and more. Her camera is probably worn out. Oh yeah, and a mesh bag with patches and a shooter in among the swirls and a red header I'd never seen before. The middle bag has 1" sparkler types in it.

Hey I like this thread. lol Since I've already bumped it, let me add science experiments in general, like that marble gun from this article, used for "simulating meteoroid impacts with the lunar surface". Shooting Marbles At Four Miles A Second

Been reading some more. Bad habit. A twist on the ball bearing use. Supposedly Master Glass marbles were used for Lazy Susans.

Anyone have a dime ... . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ... and a time machine?

This is some original Alox packaging, not backfilled. Kinda on the mind-boggling side, I think you might agree.

Lesser known Ravenswood packaging: (source) Ron's comments about it: Source of that discussion: This was labeled "old fashioned" Al's Old Fashion bag from that thread, for when attachments are purged, which occasionally happens: Additional comments from Ron: What Can You All Tell Me About This?

Hello Nancy! How fascinating to hear from you. I know some people who would love to talk to you! I've learned a little more since I started the thread last year, but some of what you say is still new to me. Thank you for sharing! Stephanie p.s. Thank you Del for posting this.

Thank you Dave for the information! This is so great! p.s. Tippelmarbel, what a neat name. thank you Roger for the offer ... an onion ... you'll make me cry.

Give me a hard one! Only $4.95 + s/h. Or did you mean a Sponge Bob pelt? I'm still waiting for him to show up on a china.

Thanks. I guess I can see this. I think I may be a little biased. Maybe I didn't think of onionskins because I don't yet love them. Might learn to love them more if I got the couple of scuffed ones I have polished. LOL ... the kids who had them before me sure loved them! Do you know of any other names onionskins were advertised under? or described by in general? Thanks as always for your insight!

I LOVE this definition of Miller Swirl! Priceless!

Cool. We do know it was being used in marbles by 1892. Micas were called Snow-Flakes about 10 years before that. I loved the description in the ad. Sometimes people ask whether these incredible looking handmades were more for display or play. It was neat to see them being promoted as both.

Muchas gracias.

Another mystery marble reference. These might be interesting because they were expensive! A kid might have to pay a nickel for them! The year was 1892. This is from a Butler Brothers catalog with wholesale prices. 1000 "Common Marbles" sold for 42 cents. 1000 "Common Painted" sold for 48. So those were the clays. Those prices work out to a little more than 20 for a penny for the dealer. So a boy might be able to get 10 for a penny. Then there were the "Painted China Alleys". The "large size", which they also called No. 4, were 29 cents for 100. Then the "Fancy Glass Marbles." The large size was 60 cents for 100. And now the Spangles. "Large size, solid glass, spangled; beautiful ornaments or playthings; retail like hot cakes at 5 cents" The dealer would get one dozen in a wooden box for 33 cents. Or he could get a box of Extra Large Spangles, "big as a hen's egg", for 75 cents. Those must have cost the customer at least a dime! Are we talking about mica now?

The reality is that the names do matter a lot on the internet. When you're at a show you see a marble in hand, so naturally you don't need to rely on a name in the same way. You don't need keywords when you're standing in front of a case of marbles. The name game is a reality on eBay. A major force in the market. We need to be able to negotiate it safely, and honestly. Not overdoing it, but not depriving ourselves of the advantages of doing it right. I'm beginning to appreciate the pressure Alan might feel over the superboy name in general. Whatever definitions are used, sellers have to be smart about using them. Need the right keywords. Need to be confident. I still don't know exactly what I would call a superboy if I ever had one to sell. I'm still looking for my first superman to call my own! And I don't care about the blending for that. Might even prefer not to have the orange. Naw ... I'll take it either way. lol In my own collection I think I'll always call it a superman not matter how much blending there is. But it's neat to finally have a clue about the different things other people are focussing on when they use the superboy name. Thought about something funny today. Christensens are not free of the name game. They're the ultimate in the name game. Why are they called Christensens? To take advantage of the fame of the M. F. Christensen name, right? And if it helped them get a foothold in the marketplace, so that they could get their wonderful marbles out where people could see them, yea for their smart marketing! I love all the hype in the old ads too. I don't mind how it sometimes misleads. It's charming. And very very human. .

Roger, that's cool. I've honestly never come close to sorting out superboys before. I've been afraid to try. I've looked at those threads and thought, "maybe later". There was so much passion and I wasn't close to seeing what the issues were. So, I closed the door and tiptoed away. As you know it takes a lot to make me tiptoe away from a subject, but superboys have had the power to make me do it. Now that you gave me a clear idea to get my mind around, I felt a little better prepared and went back and reread what was said in the last superboy showdown. I still haven't reread the whole thread but I got as far as what Mary M said purists would say about superboys. It's different from your version. This would be a point where the discussion could get interesting, or could get dangerous when people get passionate, or could get very chaotic if people aren't careful. Wouldn't it be sweet if we could stick to interesting? And have people who believe in superboys say which version of the superboy they have adopted. Things like that. So, here's where I see you: If it started out to be a superman, it's still a superman as long as it has three colors. blue, red and orange means still a superman. Then if I have read her post correctly, the version Mary attributed to the purists was that it had to have the correct three colors to be a superman. Had to have blue, red and yellow. If it didn't have clear (edit: distinct, "true") yellow, it wasn't a man anymore. It became a boy. Have I stated these versions of the name correctly? Where do other variations fall? Like what if it's blue, yellow and orange? Is that a superman for you Roger? Would that be a superboy to the people Mary described? What if it has blue, red, yellow and orange? Superman easily for you. Would that be a superboy to some?

Patent #1828226 METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR FEEDING GLASS CHARGES OF DIFFERENT COLORS, patented Oct. 20, 1931 (filed Oct. 15, 1927) http://www.google.com/patents?id=rvBDAAAAEBAJ&dq=1828226 Awarded to Everett O. Hiller, of Hartford, Connecticut, assignor to Hartford-Empire Company, of Hartford, Connecticut, a corporation of Delaware Opening text: .

Made in Japan for sale in South America: From the auction description: (source)

Been talking to someone ... (hi Someone!) ... and we tossed around some theories about why some marbles are hard to get a definition for ... Marbles where if you post to ask a question about them, the thread is pretty much guaranteed to jump into the same discussion which happened the last time a question was asked about them a few months earlier. Never moving ahead. And leaving the person who posted the question feeling a bit shaken. So this is a thread to bravely discuss some of those marble types ... and try to get to the reasons for why particular types seem to cause friction. There could be different reasons for different marbles. For example, the ringer. The other day Bo asked a very carefully phrased question about them to get past the usual issues ... and you could hear the echoes. And then there's the superboy. A common difficulty seems to be that some people don't want a name used at all. They may object to a specific name, or they may be fighting a general tide toward creating new names. While others are ready to say, "this name is in use, so what does it mean to the people who use it?" Then the too-easy answer is likely to be, "It means money!" Sure, it does. But that's not an inherently bad thing. Hype and name recognition are part of the market. MFC, CAC and Akro all did it most deliciously (and somewhat humorously). If they weren't successful at it, would we be talking about marbles now? So, accepting that a name is used, for whatever reason, and accepting that some people will object ... what's does the name mean to the well-meaning people who use it? Is there some ideal example of it? What is a meaningful range of variation for it? Another problem occurs when a name is used in more than one way. For example, chocolate oxblood. Some are adamant that it should only be used for one particular marble type, but I've seen two distinct usages over the several years I've been watching it. An older example in that category is moon or moonie. It's been used in many ways over the years. One more example which often starts long discussions is Joseph's coat.

Master was a term of address for boys, so we can guess that young Earl was probably under 13 when he received that fascinating box!

Every now and then board settings have been known to spontaneously change. Sounds like you have an Options issue. Last time it was reported was last August. Check this out: Help

LOL Guess what Joe! I gave my copy of that particular Block book away, but Fisherman has taken a pic of that page! (from a tornado core transitional auction he just posted a link to )

Not a problem. I hoped that's all it was. I need to have faith that my eyes will still be able to read magazine print in 20 years, so I trusted there was an answer!

Here's the KC club's catalog page: New Marble ID Note it says "Chinese Marbles - coming soon". Something to keep an eye out for! On the "House of Marbles - 2005 Catalog" page, they show the Teign Valley marbles at the bottom and the Chinese handmades at the top. This is a clipping from the Chinese page. Maybe yours are less picture perfect versions of these????