lopacki

Please show me what you are referring to when you say aces. I see more than a few marbles in this selection that I have set aside when making beads because I felt they were too nice to have a hole drilled in them. I think I know what one is the aces but not sure. Thanks in advance ........ All my best ..... Danny

Been in New Mexico for over thirty five years and for 22 of those years at an elevation of 7400 ft. During this time period it was not unusual to see -15 to -20 this time of year. We moved south and down to 5,000 ft thirteen years ago, last night we hit 12 degrees .......... Gotta love living in the banana belt. We go to Tucson for a two week show at the end of the month and it is usually very nice there that time of year. everyone stay warm .......... All my best ........ Danny

Me again. As I was eating lunch I had some more thoughts. All of the German hand made marbles I have pretty much all have the same color pallet, this said when I see a marble that falls out of this pallet of colors I have to question it. I just went and looked at the listing again and I feel the colors are not the true "old color" All my best ... Danny

For what it is worth my vote is new. I am seeing more than a few "old" hand made swirls that I question. As long as it did not cost a lot its a nice marble whether new or old. All my best ..... Danny

Paul, After much loss in my early drilling because of the marbles blowing up from internal stress I had a talk with a friend that is a master glass artist regarding the fact that I thought they needed to be annealed prior to drilling, he agreed and told me about a digital control for my burnout oven that would work prefect for this process (a nine hour run), well it turned out that the control control was quite expensive (over 700.00), I bit the bullet and bought it. I went from loosing two out of five marbles to almost no loss at all, so the money spent was worth it. Regarding drilling. I have been a lapidary/jeweler since 1977 and made my first stone beads in about 1978 this said I figured the drilling would be no problem which is true once I figured out the cracking problem. I use a Foredom flexible shaft machine in conjunction with a Foredom drill press. I have a homemade water system that directs a very small stream of water directly into the hole, I use a 1.25mm diamond drill. I made a fixture for the drill press that centers each marble when it is placed into the fixture, so if the marble is perfectly round the hole comes out dead center. Yes the strand is quite heavy and I would not want the wear it all day long, I mostly put this strand together just to see what it looked like. Most of the marble beads will be used in conjunction with other beads to make necklaces. All my best .......... Danny

I am copying a post I just made on a bead forum I am quite active on because the topic is marble beads. As most of you know I have been somewhat obsessed with making marbles into beads. I started out with old German hand made marbles and then thought it would be fun to make some out of machine made marbles. This was much easier said then done but now that I have all of the problems solved I am getting quite a few together. Yesterday I decided it was time to string a strand up and see what they looked like. I did do some picking of what I thought were the more visual marbles and I must say I am thrilled with the results. I wore this yesterday for our get together with Lela and the family and got comments from Lela Kyle and Tanna about how eye catching they are. Kyle my son in law rarely reacts to much when it comes to beads but with this strand he actually held it and looked very closely at it and said how much he liked it. I am in hopes of having some hundreds (depending on how much drilling time I get in) of these machine made marble beads with us at Tucson so if your there stop by and check them out and let us know what you think. All my best ...... Danny

Robert, I may have an interest in your 7/8 and up slags ............ Email me when you have the time. All my best ...... Danny

The caliper I posted is a 6 inch that measures both inch and millimeter with the push of a button. I personally would buy metal and can not see where it would scratch glass. All my best ...... Danny

Thank you all for your replies it has helped me out quite a bit. I agree that some of the marbles seem to be same cane, both in the white and the yellow latticino. Bob and Istmmrbls I am glad and sad from what you said .......... Sad because now I have to see if I can't find a complete set. Thanks again ............. All my best ........ Danny

Monique, The tool is called a digital caliper and as said they can be found online I have them on my website www.lopacki.com I expect they can be found on Amazon for less than I sell them for, perhaps as little as 15.00 All my best ....... Danny

As I prefer German hand made marbles I was thrilled to find this old game complete with marbles a few weeks ago, it came out of England. My granddaughter loved it this weekend once she realized you had to think ahead on jumps. She managed to get down to 3 marbles. Marbles are not quite pee wees and the board is only 9 X 9 inches. All my best ......... Danny

Marlene, Most likely harder to fill the holes than put them in. Thanks for the funny comment. All my best ......... Danny

I posted this on a bead forum I belong to and thought the folks here might be interested. Still playing with marbles. I recently went from hand made German marbles and tried drilling machine made marbles. Well the images below show that it is easier said than done. After I had ruined half of the marbles because they cracked I thought it was because they had not been annealed properly. I placed a call to my favorite glass master Art Seymour and we discussed this, he agreed and said that the machine marbles were made in such quantity per day (in my research some machines made nearly 200 a minute) and sold for so little that there was no way they would take the time to anneal. As I get obsessed with new projects with Arts guidance I purchased a quite expensive digital heat control for my burn out oven, I got the control yesterday and plan to hook it up this weekend. I think that once I have all of the bugs worked out Suzi and I will have a winner. Suzi told me that once things are ironed out she wants to drill some of the marbles. We hope to have quite a few at Tucson but at this time what you see is what we have. All my best ....... Danny

What I asked Morphy's These look like cast reproductions that were from a rubber mold because they have porosity in them. If they were original I would think they would not have this in them. Can you state without a doubt that these are in fact as old as stated in this listing. Best regards Daniel P.S. This question is not showing up in the questions asked.

I have been doing silver smithing since 1978 and have done a fair share of casting, in both of these medals you can see porosity, this said a rubber mold was made of the medals and whomever cast them is far from good at casting. I have cast pieces that ended up with porosity and they ended up in my scrap. You would think if your trying to rip people off you would at least use a great casting. Years ago I bought a wonderful Greek coin from Ebay at a cheap enough price it was worth the gamble, as soon as I had it in hand I knew without a doubt it was cast. I told the seller (did not want a refund) and they found it hard to believe me, I pointed out that the edge of the coin had lines where the rubber mold was cut and whomever did the casting did not even clean up the finished casting. I learned after this that in Europe it is common for some large casting concerns to cast old rare coins for sale as reproductions. I am going to contact Morphy's on this item and tell them they are selling a casting I will let you know if I receive a reply. All my best ........ Danny

Ron, I have seen quite a few modern "old German" marbles on Ebay that are being sold out of Portugal, even an onionskin with a green core plus mica, I think I just saw one in the past few days. I think the colors in your marble are off so my guess would also be modern. All my best .... Danny

I have only been buying hand made Germans for about two years but have read plenty and seen well in excess of 1000. This marble in my opinion is extremely rare for three reasons, the blue color base, the one color band (usually three or four) and last the mica. I think if this were put on Ebay and the right collectors saw it you would be amazed at the price it went to. All my best ......... Danny

Now look at what you have started ........... We will all be looking now!!! Cool collection ..... All my best ........ Danny

Seems funny to me that these marble sellers don't spend the little bit of money it takes to own a digital caliper. I sell digital calipers on my web site for 27.95 and I am sure they can be purchased on Ebay for less. If your selling things where size is very important then give the proper size in you description. This said I'd be leaving at least a neutral maybe a negative!! You do seem to find all of the bad apples on Ebay ................. Better you than me!! HA HA All my best ......... Danny

Randy, Hope you find the last for this case and start another. I assume you have smaller handmades and I think we all have a genuine interest in seeing more. I will take some photos hopefully tomorrow of a few puny ones I have to share. I own quite a few handmades I think its in the hundreds at this time, most need reconditioning but I do have a few killer as made perhaps Killermarbles may be interested, perhaps not. Killer marbles thanks for posting .......... All my best .... Danny

I have seen this same type of pattern on very old beads/pendents out of Asia, I will see if I can find them on the bead forum and if so I will post an image. The person that posted them stated that they were buried in cloth and this is what made the pattern. All my best .............. Danny

Wonderful onion skin I would be thrilled to have it in my collection. Thanks for posting it and thank you for the water trick. All my best ............... Danny

At this time it is over 5,000.00 I think at this price I would answer questions with a smile on my face!!! All my best ....... Danny P.S. I do not think it has been polished, if so it would be much smoother.

Mike I buy my grit from the rock shed website they seem to have some of the best prices. You might try using PVC fittings in the future. All my best ...... Danny

Just checked out the images on Ebay and I see four beads the three that look like ceramic are most likely glass and I would guess that they are old Japanese beads. Not too sure about the brown swirl bead on the right. I will post this image on a bead forum and see what the people there say. I will keep you informed. All my best .......... Danny