crashbelt

Great size and colour combination.

Continuing the clear micas theme heres my 3 examples together. The smaller one is a 10" board with 18-20mm marbles. The other 2 are 12" boards with 20-22mm and 23-24mm marbles. All the marbles are faceted and the boards well made - so all from the early period. The 23-24mm marbles are not original to the board - the other 2 sets most likely are.

Thanks Jeff - the Running Rabbit article is a good rule of thumb for dating solitaire handmade marbles and boards. I printed it off years ago - must dig it out! I use a detailed article by Richard Ballam, UK top expert on all Victorian board games, which is excellent for dating boards and identifying makers, but not much on the imported German marbles. I'm surprised that no-one has produced a book on Victorian solitaire sets as they are incredibly photogenic and important in the history of handmade marbles. Ideally a games historian from the UK where the biggest market was and most of the turned boards were made by firms like Jaques and Ayres, including the rarer non-solitaire types. I've bought or handled 100s of sets over 30+ years collecting and together with my friend and fellow board collector Tom H, have a pretty good idea (never 100% sure of course) which sets of marbles are original to the boards. My collection is catalogued in detail, including my estimation of originality or not. I try to say in my posts here if I believe sets to be original. I bought the large clear micas I just posted, without a board. The beautiful 12" board, I put the clear micas on, in fact came with 5 badly damaged 1" onionskin micas - it must have been an incredible early example. So the set I posted is not original although it looks like it could have been! I think that around three quarters of my sets are original - a high success rate largely down to me collecting and keeping the best examples over the years. Sorry for digressing a bit everyone - Jeff got me thinking!!

You have great Josephs and Onions Chad - probably my favourite handmades!

Here's a nice big 12" board with faceted 23-24mm clear micas. Clear micas are more attractive than I'm able to show with my lack of photographic/lighting skills!!

Here's a 9 hole Jaques Numerical Puzzle board with some one inch swirls.

Yellow glass strands and lutz are made for each other......................

Here's three same cane solid cores. Nothing unusual but nice one inch size.

This Thursday I'm sharing my happiness at finishing off my last incomplete board. I bought this board with 31 x 17-20mm faceted clear micas a long time ago. Block's recent auction had three exactly matching micas which I bought and am delighted with the result. Having added two of the micas to make it up to 33 mibs, I literally now can't tell which are the newcomers!!! Happy days!!!!!

Just can't get enough Josephs and Skins!!!

Here's a cloth bag of simple lined unglazed chinas this week.

I think Latticinos are under-appreciated sometimes because so many were made. These are great!!

Wow that's a beautiful display of handmades.

One of my favourite solitaire marble sets has a new board. The marbles are 25-27mm faceted pontil green micas I bought years ago with a non-original board that was a bit undersized for 1"+ marbles.. I've just found this very fine board stamped E Spurin 37 New Bond Street London. Spurin was a maker/retailer operating from this top London shopping street around 1850-1870. So the faceted micas dating from a similar period are a perfect match for the board. If this is all a bit too nerdy please just enjoy the pic!!!

Wow Chad - nice theme and great examples!!

Since you asked Chad the boards are a bit smaller than 6"x7". The one in the post is about 5 5/8" square and the swirls are pee wees. Then I have 3 more original sets which are rectangular at c. 6 1/2" x5 1/2". The mibs on those are pee wee micas, and just over pee wee sized swirls and micas. I have 3 more 'spare' boards - 2 in the c.6 1/2" x 5 1/2" size and one about 5 5/8" square. Thanks for prompting me to get measuring! These boards were relatively common in the UK, usually missing the marbles of course. I have wondered whether FW Ayres only sold these as parts of compendium games sets or if they sold some separately. Here's a picture of the reverse side which all 7 of mine have.

I thought it might be good this week to show this square board and pee wee swirls in its Victorian FW Ayres Games Compendium. The board fits neatly into the wooden box - the second pic shows more games under the board when its packed away. Lock and key still work which is cool. I have several of these small square/rectangular boards (all with fox and geese on the reverse side) and presume they all came from Compendium sets?

Sold for $579 with 3 bidders over $550, all fairly regular marble buyers on Ebay!! If its real that's a steal. I'd want a top expert on handmades to examine it before dropping big money. My hunch is that its a well made reproduction and the buyer has taken a chance on it! You would expect a genuine red blizzard micas that size be sold through a reputable auction house.

I collect mainly old handmades and solitaire boards. But there's a business in Devon in SW England that may be the only contemporary maker in the UK. Its Teign Valley Glass, which runs an attraction called the House of Marbles in Bovey Tracey. The marbles can't compare with the amazing US contemporary makers but I buy a few because they're made over here. Here's a selection of their 1.5" marbles.

Thanks for posting this Chad - I've never seen a set made for the German domestic market. I bought quite a lot from Germany over the years and read much of the research and that's the first I've seen of one, so they must have been made in far smaller numbers than sets for the English market. As you see I have quite a few surviving English boxes! Great to learn something new, although I agree the Ebay pricing seems very optimistic. I have this similar set (unboxed) on a nicer mahogany board, and the onions are more blue over white.

Beautiful Josephs Chad and I'm a sucker for a big mica!

Here's some original boxes from my solitaire collection. Chad Valley, Glevum, Gibson, Ayres, Jaques and WS Spear I think. Always nice to have them with original sets even if tatty! Some have survived 100-150 years.

Please forgive a quick digression, but I've been scratching my head as to where I know your avatar from akroorka! Just opened Everett Grist's 1992 book Antique and Collectible Marbles and there on P81 is the Akro Agate gift box with 'your' great image!! I bet everyone else here knows this already but I liked finding it.

Here's a nice swirl set on a fruitwood board.