Steph

Definitely a butt crack! More pronounced on one than on the other. I'd been calling the butt cheeks "lobes" when describing them in emails to friends, but no one knew what I was talking about. Now that I know that proper terminology, maybe we'll get somewhere! Here's a shot highlighting the cheeks on that first one.

Okay. So, that's really interesting. Lizzy's first pigtail totally looked like it could have matched the glass underneath very closely. There were some differences, but it seemed like it could have been due to smearing or shearing. On the other hand, Bob's blended spiderman pigtails look like blended spiderman glass but seem definitely out of sync with the glass underneath, so they seem to be last stage imbeds. Errors, if you will. Steve's pigtail looks most like mine, because it has little or no color, but though it is out of place it still seems like it might match the lightest shade on his mib. So, it could be in the same category as Bob's: a mismatched patch but the same basic glass. So I've gone back and rechecked my original swirls for signs that my pigtails are integrally related to the rest of the glass in the marble, but those pigtails are definitely not colored like the marbles they have sprouted from. I'm considering the possibility that there is a clear or translucent but sheer layer of glass over the marble and that these pigtails are made of the same glass as was used for that final layer. Yet I'm still struck by the similarity between the positioning of the pigtails on these two marbles, and by the fact that they seem to tie off the ribbon of color somehow. So I keep asking myself if this could possibly be coincidence or if the pigtails could possibly be intrinsically related to how these marbles were made. By the way, I haven't heard anyone voting that these are jabo. Is everyone agreed they're probably not? Steph

Hi Lizzy. That's a great picture. Definitely the closest thing I've seen yet to my "anomaly". (Nifty word!) Your pigtail appears to be multi-colored. Do the colors match with the marble? That may sound like a *duh* question, but bear with me. I have a definite idea in mind. Picture a striped sheet on a bed. If it has a serious wrinkle in it, then you might have a wad of extra sheet material gathered above the main sheet. And that wad of sheet might be striped. At first glance, the striping on the wad of sheet might seem out of sync with the striping of the main sheet underneath it, but you should still be able to tell that it was the same material with the same stripe pattern and it was actually drawn up from the sheet underneath it. Glass being drawn up in a wrinkle or crimp or pigtail might smear in a way that cloth would not, but there's a good chance that enough of the striping would be preserved that you could see that it was probably pulled up from the main glass of the marble. As opposed to a separate piece of glass being imbedded in the marble. Does that make sense, and does the coloration of your pigtail match the marble underneath it in that manner?

Thanks Kris. And no, they don't have the dusty little contact marks or sparkle like Jabos tend to have. Considering when I got these, their condition is quite extraordinary. These are some of my first marbles and I bought them before I learned to baby them. Also before I knew about keeping good records to aid in later identification. I can narrow the possible sources down quite a bit but not far enough to be able to swear they are not modern. So which one is the quizzical emoticon! -Steph

I think I am close to solving my picture taking problems. It's been so hard in a 100-year-old house with such a wasted electrical grid that 75 W bulbs blow out if you don't think happy thoughts while toggling the light switch ... but I think I'm getting there. So here: The majority opinion obtained through a smattering of emails has been that this is a Jabo with furnace junk stuck in it. I just cannot believe that though. That so-called junk is in each of these two marbles, and is practically the same shape and in practically the same location. It is a neat bar of glass which appears to me to be deliberately placed. It is translucent on one marble and near-opaque off-white on the other. Its position on both marbles is at or very near one end of what appears to be to be the single ribbon of color. Does anyone have an example photo they could post of a Jabo that is anything like this? Gracias, Steph