crashbelt

Wow Chad that sure could be a real black mica. Baumann did talk about some very rare purple micas being so dark that there's no mica inside, but an outer layer cased in clear which your first pic appears to be. So it could be the same treatment for a real black one. Great if there are any more pics around to shed some more light!!

I've never seen a black mica. The darkest of my purples look almost black but are clearly purple when I shine a bright light through them. Paul Baumann's book Antique Marbles, which was my main reference for collecting German marbles, doesn't refer to black among the rare colours he lists. I'd love to see one!!

Here from my collection is another (6th I think) instalment of solitaire boards - this time all small micas. The 2 square boards are from late-Victorian Ayres Games Compendiums. Bottom left is a set with purple micas which are quite rare and I've never seen another complete set. To be honest they don't display that well because the glass is nearly opaque unless you shine a bright light through them, but its a very cool set to have.

Here's few swirls.

Can't resist a group of onionskins - nothing large or rare here but I love the way they look together!

I love these bits of old canes that were dug up in Thuringen.

Wow - thanks for all that advice. Just confirms my complete lack of knowledge of US machine-mades!! Here's a close up of the green slags. They're 9/16"-5/8" and I can't find any trace of pontil marks. I doubt that will enable any more light to be shed on the makers from your advice and I can't date the mibs or the board to pre or post 1914. Here's also a close up of the other 3 - they're more like 11/16"-3/4". Any further enlightenment would be great, but I'm just happy to have a complete set of green slag marbles with the mahogany board - makes a nice change from all my Germans!!!

I would appreciate some help please. All my vintage solitaire boards have German handmades except this one I bought in Edinburgh 25 years ago. I have a few 20th Century boards with European (I think) machine mades but this one is unique to my collection as appearing to be old but with maybe American early machine made marbles. I wondered if the 9-shaped swirls in the glass meant they could be MFC slags, but I haven't a clue really! Any advice would be great. Whilst on the subject I have just 3 other mibs which I think could be US machine mades too and any thoughts on those would be really cool too. Thanks in advance, and if you need more pics to helps I'll gladly oblige!

Here is a set of Victorian marble game boards from my collection, but this time they are not solitaire boards but other rare types of marble games from the 1850-1880 period. Upper left is a Jaques' Royal Garrison Game board, a larger variant of German Tactics. It is set up with 50 'men' and 3 'officers'. The mica marbles are not original to the board, but are consistent with an image I have seen of an all original board with micas. The little board on the lower left is the Star Puzzle, again I believe made by Jaques. Non-original marbles. On the right are two Nine Mens Morris (also known as Merelles or The Mill) boards, set up as they would should be with two opposing sets of 9 marbles. These too are not original marbles to the boards. The larger one came with a few dyed agates which could well be original to the board, but too few to make up the numbers so I have put some swirls and onions on the board. Thanks to the Marble Connection for the opportunity to share images of my boards with German marbles with your community of mib-enthusiasts!

Great thread. Thanks for posting these examples and descriptions. Fascinating to learn about these rarities.

Here is another image showing some nice, if not very rare, solitaire boards from my collection. I believe all these sets are original, and all the marbles are faceted types from the earlier period. Sizes are c 14mm, 17mm, 21mm and 25mm. I plead guilty to adding the red mica to the 32 marble 17mm set! I have found micas to be the most common marbles on English solitaire sets after swirls. I have plenty of others which I'll post another time. A set of reds would be the holy grail - I've never seen one.

Hi - here's a couple more solitaire boards with German handmade from my collection. Standard 33 hole boards, but both with complete, and I presume original sets of Joseph's Coats in great condition. They're 14/15mm and 17/18mm and it was great to find them all still together. Cheers Dave

Great examples of German handmades in this thread. Bit late to the party but here's some of mine. They range in size from 2 5/8" the tri-level Swirl to 1 5/8" the EOD Cloud.

Hi - I'm feeling guilty since promising in 2018 to post some more examples from my collection of turned board games, it's taken 3 years!!! So here's a couple of incredibly rare Victorian boards by F H Ayres - the 81 hole 9 x 9 and the 49 hole 7 x 7 sets dating to around 1860-1880 I believe. They both take small marbles - around 9/16" for the 9 x 9 and 1/2" the 7 x 7. Unlike most of my boards, the marbles are not original to the sets sadly. But I've filled them with some of my favourites from my stash. The 9 x 9 is all onions with the odd Joseph. The 7 x 7 includes fairly common pee wee swirls, mica etc. But there's a cloud, a gooseberry, 3 naked ribbons (2 same cane), a Joseph, 2 same cane red latt ribbons a red latt, a 3 stage caged orange and white latt, 2 Indians, and 2 same cane alternating blue/white latts. Hope you like the pics. Ask me any questions and I'll try not to take another 3 years to put some more up!! Cheers Dave

Thanks Vancecrash - collecting Victorian turned game boards with handmade marbles has been a rewarding passion for many years. The lines on the Jaques Numerical Puzzle boards are painted or perhaps inked on. They appear to be under the final finish coat and show no wear. Under close magnification they are very straight and even - much finer than the German Tactics lines on a few solitaire boards I examined for comparison. I may post some other rarer sets on the main thread so a few more people may see them.

Hi Sami - here are two of my rarest boards - the two versions of Jaques Numerical Puzzle. Beautifully turned simple mahogany boards with the original numbered ceramic marbles - I love the Victorian-style numbering. Each marble has three marks on the reverse side from where the marbles were set on a trivet to dry. Diamond imprint marks under the board date the copyright registration to 1858 - the boards are believed only to have been made up to c1865 so that dates them pretty closely. Boards are 18cm and 12.5cm, marbles 16-17mm - very cute!! I've not seen a 24 hole board - that would be good to see. The small 8 hole board may be the Star Puzzle - I have one probably by Jaques with I believe original swirls. If you let me see yours I can confirm if yours is one of those. I've not seen a 6 hole board for larger marbles. Although I started off collecting German handmades, I'm at least as interested in the boards, especially where the marbles can be deduced to be original to the set. Cheers Dave

I joined this forum in 2011 so its about time for my first post!! I've been collecting turned antique game boards with handmade German marbles for 25 years. I have around 100, mostly with original marbles and many boxed or with compendiums, and plenty of loose marbles. Makers include Jaques, Ayres, Gibson, Chad Valley but can't be definite about most. The solitaire boards are mostly 33 hole, one or two 37 hole and one very rare 81 hole board. Then there are The Royal Garrison Game, Nine Mens Morris (Merelle) boards, the Star Puzzle and best of all both the 9 and 16 hole Jaques Numerical Puzzles with complete sets of glazed numbered chinas from around 1860. Most boards have swirls of between half and three quarters of an inch. There are many mica boards including one inch greens and nine sixteenth purples. There are some nice early Onionskins, Indians, Joseph Coats and mixed sets. Britain was a great hunting ground for original boards when I was building my collection, and I have slowed down a lot in recent years having acquired most of the sets I wanted, and having been distracted in recent years collecting early Gibson and Fender guitars (which makes marble collecting seem cheap!!!). Apart from one set of I think Christensen green slags I have no US machine-mades which I rarely see over here. I'm back on the board/marbles trail again having just finished full-time work, so it was great to find this forum and go back over some of the archive threads. Its been fascinating seeing some of amazing rarities and boulders that you have in the US. I'd forgotten ever joining in 2011 - I presume the Marble Connection was a link with Alan Basinet who sold me a few marbles in the past and was a really great guy and a sad loss in 2012. I'm sorry not to have posted an image or two but I'm struggling to compress files enough. I look forward to learning even more about German handmade from your collective wisdom.