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Those in the pic with circular marks with the nub in the middle... those aren't pontils, they are hit marks. (Damage) You do have some pontiled marbles that lstmrbls pointed out. Some nice swirls in the last pic too!

Blurry pic, but:

A better than average pile of old marbles! Nothing super crazy but nice overall!

Tan base, like a very light coffee. They can have a little white striated in the base too, but these don't.

They aren't in original packaging, but how often do you stumble across a nice group of red ravens?

Me too.

I'm down with vitro too.

Thanks! Here's a shot of the other pole

Here's one I just picked up that I'm in love with right now.

Sure looks like a CAC to me!

Thank you for the comments! I made it with selling it in mind, but I'm thinking hard about pulling the listing and keeping it. It doesn't fit 100% with my decor but it wouldn't be out of place either. Decisions, decisions !!!

Thanks! It's sitting on the old trunk in my living room for the setting. The center light is a turn signal from a 1965 buick riviera! It's upside down on the sculpture.

I am a bit of an artist and love to dabble with different media. I recently decided to give metalworking a try since I have all the equipment for work. Hopefully one day I can direct more time to it. I made this sculpture/lamp in "steampunk" style from scraps of metal from the junkyard. I love the weird mad scientist mechanical look of steampunk. Welding, cutting, bending, painting, wiring, etc... It was fun! I'm ready to make another. Got this one listed on the bay.

I know these sellers have been reported multiple times to ebay. I think we should all complain at one time to ebay... a coordinated effort with a statement endorsed by a lot of the collectors in the community. Then we can all add our signatures and copy/paste it to the "report this auction" link on ebay. It'd a shame this person is allowed to continue to rip people off this way and it's a shame that ebay continues to allow it even after hundreds or thousands of reports.

Looks right to me! Apparently the other site is just wrong! Thanks.

Here is something I just located about the weatherbird box and logo. Makes me wonder just how old those rainbos are. "The Peter’s Shoes Company, with headquarters in St. Louis, Missouri, used the Weather Bird logo from 1907 to 1932. The company issued a wide range of promotional items ranging from comic books to postcards to whistles. Researching this question brought back a flood of childhood memories. My mother favored Buster Brown shoes, manufactured by the Brown Shoe Company who licensed the use of Richard Outcault’s Buster Brown cartoon character in 1904. Before a sale was concluded, children were asked to step up to the shoe-fitting fluoroscope machine which produced an x-ray image of your feet showing how your feet fit within the shoes. The fluoroscope was a sales gimmick. The fit of a shoe depends on flesh size, something the machine could not measure nor demonstrate. Once a sale was concluded, it was premium time. Encountering a Buster Brown shoe premium in my travels always brings a smile to my face. According to one source, The Peltier Marble Company made the Weather Bird, rainbow marble premium. Another source indicated the boxes contained Akro corkscrew marbles. It is possible Weather Bird Shoes contracted with more than one company. Equally probable is that a dealer switched the marble type to create a rarity that never existed historically." Taken from this site: http://www.harryrinker.com/col-1359.html

I agree, they look like new chinese marbles... but do the chinese marbles have pontils?

Your handmade ones have better flames than any of the machine mades I think. I keep thinking I'll try my hand at it one day, but Lord knows I have enough irons in the fire!! It looks like you have mastered the art though!

Wow. So it sounds like there is a lot of experience and intentional setup of the machinery at play here, and also a lot of plain old luck.

Yeah, I know just enough about how they made marbles to be able to very generally describe the process, but how they did anything beyond shear a stream of glass and roll it into a round ball on the rollers, I don't know. I am very mechanically minded though and I look at things like this and reverse engineer them in my mind... thinking about how it must have been done or how I would attempt to do the same. I guess it doesn't matter, but it's where the mind wanders. I look at one like this and can't help myself... I have to wonder how they did it.

That's a pretty one! I have one really busy one that is all tan... makes it hard to see all the action going on, but it's got a lot. If that much ribbon was able to run out of the tank in a half second, it seems like it would have to be flowing really fast since it's such a thin stream. You don't think the ones with a ton of ribbon took longer to make than the ones with just a little bit of a fatter ribbon? I don't know, I imagine them taking a bit longer and paying more attention when they made mibs like this than when they made the regular run of the mill marbles. I'm just speculating though...

I know, right? How were these types made? I mean, obviously they weren't just a glob of glass that got sheared off as it drained out of a tank. I can see the stream and how it trickled and layered for what must have been a few seconds before it got sheared. What held this pile of glass while it was running out of the machine? Was it just drizzling down onto the rollers as they rolled and twisted it up and then the shears cut it loose and off it went down the rollers? Obviously, this type took a good bit more time to produce and wasn't made when during the years when quantity was king over quality.

I just scored this little beauty. It's not 100% mint, but nice enough. It reminds me of the salesman case Alleys.

Cool... those are some newer looking ones. Late 40's or maybe 50s?

Nice... those look very similar. Funny how the red wisps make the glass look red until you shine a light through it. Even then it looks red until you hit a spot where you can see the light without any filaments interfering.