crashbelt

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!

I thought it would be fun to continue with micas from last week. So I gathered up the different colours I could think of from my boards and elsewhere, using Paul Baumann's great book as a reference. So here set on a Victorian pine Spin Jenny board are random sizes of micas - some photograph better than others unfortunately. There's blue, clear, aqua, blue/green, brown, yellow, turquoise, purple, amethyst, green, yellow, amber and of course my only red one. First time I ever put the different colours together and a lot of fun. It would be cool if fellow mica collectors post colours I'm missing - I saw a light pink one once on an auction site!!

I'm pleased to say it is a red one. Out of maybe 5-600 micas on my solitaire boards or loose its the only red one I have!

Micas were often chosen for Victorian solitaire boards. I've posted a few of my mica sets before. Sometimes it's nice to get some from my jar of loose micas out for a picture. Not sure the idea of putting them on my piano keys is the greatest artistic setting but hey...........

Nice colourful Bennies - didn't realise anyone was making knock-offs! I'm not sure about your half and half. I have blue and brown Bennies but the colours are more patchily distributed rather than two fairly distinct 'hemispheres' and I can't see any characteristic 'eyes'. But I'm no expert on Benningtons so maybe disregard my thoughts!

A rest from the solitaire boards this Thursday. A nice box of 70 unglazed lined chinas (11-12mm) and a larger painted rose china.

Great shelf full of Germans Chad - just beautiful.

Wow that's a very rare bird - ribbon onionskin I think. So beautiful its tempting to polish it because its core is so obscured, although I'm usually in the 'leave it be' camp.

I've posted this board this week as it shares many similarities with last week's. Glevum Games, boxed, pine or fruitwood board, ground pontil mibs but quite intricate designs - same as last week but very different mibs - no black glass for example. Wish I had greater knowledge about the makers as my guess is that Glevum sourced these mibs from a different maker from last week's. I've highlighted my favourite 4. A red latt, a tri-level light blue solid core with inner white latt cage, two blue jelly cores (sorry they don't photograph well) - one a tri-level with an inner white latt cage.

Love yours too Chad!! I've seen several sets over the years with this kind of combination of 'English' colour swirls so I'm as confident as I can be that our sets are original.

Here is a Chad Valley set. Boxed, cheap looking 2 tone board - probably painted/stained plywood. Ground pontil mibs. Looks very late period to me, perhaps early 20th Century. The stars are the lovely simple 'English' colour swirls, especially the single colour solid cores.

It's Thursday so here's another board. Glevum Games boxed, pine board. very clear glass with bright colours. Rough ground pontils despite quite intricate Swirl design. I'm guessing very late period maybe early 20th C? I highlighted my faves - 2 same cane single ribbons in black/yellow/white and their double ribbon sibling. Unusually nearly all the mibs have some black glass which is very unusual.

Here's a board with onions and Indians. Boxed - Chad Valley. Ground pontils so later period.

Another Thursday solitaire board. A mix of swirls and Josephs in bright colours. I'm pretty sure this too is an original set as the colours are consistent between the Josephs and the swirls as are the ground pontils.

This Thursday here's one of the first boards I collected 30 years ago! Blue/white onions, some in less than perfect condition, but all original to the set except two I had to add to make up the numbers. Its nice to have the instructions so well preserved on the base of the board - so often torn or removed.

I do agree that if you can't display them properly its best to sell some, although that's easier said than done! My solitaire board collection was over 100 boards, with around a third of them stacked on top of each other😕. So as a lockdown project I catalogued and reviewed the collection and sold 15 through a UK auction house and Ebay. The selling decisions weren't difficult (duplicates, superseded place-holders, poorer quality mibs, non-original sets) and I've no regrets and can display some retained boards better. I still need to off-load maybe another 20 boards, which I rather like, so the next stage of downsizing will be tougher.