crashbelt

Here's an oddity from my collection. The marbles are pretty routine swirls in nice condition. But the board is made of real marble, with black marble feet. It weighs over 2kg and I've never seen another!

I think I'd polish those too - they look beautiful.

So here's the very rare 49 hole solitaire board after last week's 81 hole version. The edge turned moulding convinces me that this was also by Ayres. This came without mibs so I filled it with 15/32-17/32" that I had.

I wish my 'stash' was full of 100s of great rarities etc, but its mostly 1/2"- 1" swirls, micas and onions which I could pick up pretty easily 20-30 years ago, but not now! I'm guessing many may have come from solitaire sets originally - I often found groups of 25-33 at a time. They have been invaluable over the years for filling the gaps in incomplete boards or as in the 81 hole solitaire making it up from scratch.

Thanks Chad it was quite a find for a solitaire board nut!! I'd love to know what the original mibs were for this board - guess that kind of knowledge is probably gone unless someone unearths an in tact set. I'll post its 49 hole little brother next Thursday.

That's spectacular!!!

This board has appeared before, pictured with another, but its worth its own spot this Thursday! Its a very rare (I've not seen another) 81 hole solitaire board - I'm sure made by Ayres because the gold markings are nearly identical to those found on the small square boards found in Ayres' games compendiums. It had no marbles when I bought it but I had just enough 9/16" onions in my stash to fill it.

Here's another set with micas. 11/16" aqua blue, with faceted pontils so early period. Micas are only just behind swirls as the most frequently found mibs on the boards in my collection. The English Victorian board game manufacturers must have imported large quantities of micas from Thüringen!

I just love a caged tornado swirl!!!

A little set of 9/16" light amber micas. Nicely ground pontils so from the later period.

Beautiful onion Chad!!

Wow - we're having a good Thursday today!!

Some orange latticinos

Beautiful!!

One of my favourite smaller sets, almost certainly from an Ayres games compendium. 17/32" so not quite pee wees. I like the intricacy of the designs for such small marbles from the later period, including lobed solid and ribbon cores.

Here's another line-up of little fellas - 15/32"-17/32" blue jelly core, green mica, orange latt, red latt, Indian, caged solid core, single ribbon, gooseberry, cloud, banded transparent

My guess is that it was intended as a naked solid core. But solid cores aren't actually solid but are tight 360 degree ribbons with no gaps so appear solid. Sometimes the core doesn't meet up all round so it unintentionally looks like a kind of ribbon core. I think that's what I remember reading somewhere and I have several like this. Unusual colours! I'm happy to be corrected on this though!!

Apologies - you are correct to call them unfinished, they are not ground. My mistake!! And we're agreed that they appear to be later period Germans.

Serious pontil grinding on the first two! Very interesting double ribbon on the third with the ribbons showing up as unblended strands. I have a few like that and I'm sure that's a feature of later German handmades, contrasting with finely produced smooth ribbons of the earlier period.

Three more small Germans this Thursday - all real pee wee size. Tri-level yellow solid core, a red white and blue Joseph and a blue solid core. They're all in great condition - the blue solid core has a heavily pinched pontil - its not a chip!

Its was fun to post a close up of 3 11/16" naked single ribbons last week, so here's their 17/32" baby siblings. 2 same canes.

What an incredible set of German marbles!!

Here's a nice old mahogany Jaques board which I filled with faceted early swirls. So not an original set, but some nice early swirls which needed a home to display. Including three 'naked' ribbon cores - not prime examples with their roll lines and one with an air bubble in there but I like them!!

Thanks. The Spin Jenny had a small wooden spinning top which was spun on the concave base of the board between the numbers, I think to knock marbles into the holes to score points. Pretty random game I guess - the top and marbles on mine were long gone!