slagmarble

I thought the color combo of the auction marble looked familiar so I dug around in the books I have. For those who have the book ,Collecting Antique Marbles, 4th Ed. by Paul Baumann...check out page 130 under subs bottom row second from the right. Colors look awful similar to me...transparent aqua base with opaque baby blue and gold. -Brad

= ?? Base glass color looks all wrong to me as does the "orange" which looks more electric in the handgathered version. Third photo and marble are both owned by GLSS aka Gary, I will take down if asked. -Brad

Love the box man killer stuff!!! You can take the photos as a .jpg and when you reply on the bottom right there is a field with "browse" and "upload" next to it. Browse to find the picture and then upload to get it onto Lou's. From there you can link it to your post and it will display. There is actually a photo tutorial here. -Brad

I guess that would explain the shortage haha and I never figured they would be appetizing to chickens...?? Learn something new everyday. You can actually upload the pics locally to the board. When you start a new message there is a field in the bottom right to upload. From there you can add a link for the image to your post. If not that way then this is what I also use. Full original boxes are a thing of beauty, looking forward to seeing it if you get the pics up. :Happy_143: -Brad

In my experience not at all easy to find especially not the rarer colors. Some of the peewees can get incredibly small, there was a red up for auction at one point I believe in the 5/16" range. This is considering there are so many survivors from the limited time CA was open and there are existing packaging of 100 count peewees, 00, and 000. There ought to be quite a few floating around since we have a relatively high number of Guineas in circulation and they appear to have only come in 25 count boxes. Maybe these were lost more easily or maybe fewer were produced? Would love to see some pics and I hope this helps. -Brad edit: I checked around and the micro-slag i was thinking of was a jaw dropping 11/32"! It would be easy at that size to disappear into a pocket.

Individual rarity really depends on a couple factors...Size and color are probably the most important then you have to factor in the manufacturer. Not all companies made all colors and in the case of CA can have unique colors not made by anyone else. General rarity tends to go: Brown/Green/Blue -> Purple -> Clear/Vaseline/Aqua/Red -> Yellow -> Orange/Lavender/Electrics/Peach When you look at sizes as a rule of thumb 9/16" and under are harder to find in any color especially the ones as you move further to the right. As far as I know all colors can be found up to 1", Lavender might be the exception. The only ones I know of that exceed an inch with any frequency are Brown/Green up to 1 7/8" Blue up to 1 5/8" and Purple/Clear up to 1 1/4" with all of these more than likely being MFC. -Brad

The largest reds I know of are at or around an inch, so yours is pretty much at the top. I think the problem with the clear slags is misidentification as swirls. Every company except Peltier (who didn't appear to be a major player in slag manufacture by numbers) made them including MFC. Vaseline/Aqua aren't particularly plentiful either. If you kept everything that came your way and didn't seek out particular colors theres a good chance the majority of your collection would be brown/green. -Brad

Its oxblood and the complete box is very rare, there are very very few existing examples floating around. Its probably on par with a Christensen Cobra box but not quite as rare as the pastel. The contents are not particularly uncommon at No. 1 which would be around 5/8". -Brad

Very unusual with an opalescent base! If all of these came from the same place then its possible its an Akro experimental. The more opaque dried blood colored one (one on the right in photo 2 and 3) is a pretty safe bet as being a dug akro "brick". Pretty killer marbles! I've never seen one with that base before. -Brad

Any chance we could get more photos of first photo center? Thats no ordinary color combo... -Brad

I see no slags in any photos in either open thread. While they may fit the basic definition i.e. transparent base (red in this case) with opaque white the pattern is far too uniform and looks like a swirl imho. -Brad

They look identical to the ones Kokoken is showing on that very same post, #23. Even goes on to mention the box is a "bloodies" box filled with red "jennies". Mike implicitly calls the ones he listed "jennies" as well in his auction. So, yes. -Brad

Pattern? http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewI...em=170109876535 $825 for 2 sparklers...such a deal! -Brad

As singles if they are Akro nothing in that box is worth more than a couple dollars each tops. Akro's at that size are very common, it would not be difficult to find as many as 8 and as few as 4 per color that were similar in size and appearance. Feathered Peltiers available in all the colors shown in the box (with the exception of clear) are significantly more expensive, particularly red, and far far more rare. -Brad

No apparent feathering, no readily visible seams...if anything the contents of this box look Akro. In the absence of compelling evidence that Peltier or CA made this type of nondescript slag it seems unlikely these are original but not impossible. Probably under similar circumstances to this one: http://marbleconnection.com/topic/6162-whatcha-think/ -Brad

Its deceptively electric looking in the photos. I'll take your word for it, but the value and rarity of a CA is hand over fist compared to the mystery company. Heck, if it were mine I'd call it a CA HG just so I could say I had one. -Brad

Roger, what does the upper left hand corner look like on its other end? I don't own an example but was hunting for a CA photo and stumbled across a listing Alan currently has active...I guess he gets a free plug. This color combination also shows up in the 2-seam (and I suppose 1 seam variety) as well. http://cgi.ebay.com/Marbles-5-8-CHRISTENSE...1QQcmdZViewItem I will of course remove all this at Alan's request. -Brad Edit: Sami beat me to it, great minds think alike

What it looks like in hand is a heavy concentration of opaque white near the lower middle portion of the marble. At the shear and at the handgather it goes to nearly full transparency. The line traces about 4 full circumferences around the marble either terminating or beginning at the shear. The shear is unusually deep and even produced divits at its ends in the surface of the marble. You can see one of these in the last photo I put up. More to come tomorrow, I still owe some comparison shots to prove its spinning the opposite direction. -Brad Edit: Just saw your other post Roger...like I said we seem to have completely different sets of terminology. In my opinion all MFC marbles have a shear mark. I guess we just call it different things.

Its not a pontil its a shear. What Roger calls a "crease pontil" I would call a plain old shear similar to what MFC marbles and the mystery (canadian?) ones have. -Brad

Looks like I missed the mark on this marble as well. Depending on where you look this type is attributed to German, Canadian, American (CA)...but it doesn't seem to be Japanese. -Brad

I see what I've missed about this vaseline...I should have been paying more attention to the white. Roger's right it is a transitional though in trying to figure out why he was calling it a "crease pontil" I realized he and I use completely different terminology. Roger's page is here: http://members.kingston.net/browse/transpics/trans2.html These are the definitions I go by: http://akronmarbles.com/pontil_variations.htm Either way you go, you got a trans. -Brad

So has the blue one been flipped or are we looking at it as it appears? I'll take a photo with the brown next to a "normal" one tomorrow which should remove any doubt. What does the seam on the yellow actually look like Chuck? Is there any spidering in the glass or is it fairly uniform and can you run a fingernail over it? -Brad Edit: I wrote a post over at LoM a ways back talking about left hand gathering. The recovered furnace piece from MFC had a groove worn into the right hand corner. This would only make sense if the marver was being spun against and into the right hand wall (clockwise) which would produce the "9" pattern everyone is so familiar with. You can see photos of what I am talking about here: http://akronmarbles.com/mf_christensen_son_co.htm If you match the brown stains on the zoomed portion it appears to be the right hand corner. Lefties are about 1 in 10. Historically they were taught to be right handed because left handedness was considered a sign of satanic influence. So you'd either have to beat the odds and have a lefty working there or have someone decide to mix it up. Horizontals seem to show the reverse bias for some reason, they were made by some extremely talented people thats for sure.

Thats a very nice slag you have there! Check closely though, and the one in my avatar is backwards, it spins counterclockwise. This is the only one I've found so far...I guess it was a fluke? The shear is 9/16" long and dead straight, the marble is 5/8". I am fairly certain its MFC. Chuck's vaseline has a nice long shear you can see in the second to last photo. If it was a transitional it would be shorter or more curved up or spidered and messy. -Brad

Either Akro or CA, with Akro being much more likely. MFC did not use vaseline glass. -Brad

Foreign but not German. It looks like a pinch pontil so I am thinking Japanese. -Brad