ManofKent

Tom Baker was my Doctor. I tried with the new series but it's not the same as classic Who. I loved the first few seasons of Red Dwarf but the latter ones with the Bug didn't do it for me. British sci-fi wise - Blake's 7 was good (although again once the Liberator as lost it lost something). Do start at the beginning! U,F.O, had some great episodes - very adult for Gerry Anderson. Live action like the later Space 1999

The turquoise combination looks particularly good.

That's a great collection Al.

Odd one indeed. The ribbons dive deep like Ravenswood and a lot of their swirls use that very bright opaque white, but there's none of the typical 'jerkiness', but I'm increasingly realising that marbles frequently don't adhere to 'typical' traits

Interestingly my Heaton four-vane yellows fluoresce a light orange under UV whilst the Bogard don't. Obviously I can't say it's true for all examples of either company....

Mountaineer Shooters: This particular packet has one clearie and one odd marble, with the rest being four vane. The odd one (green) is half filled with green threads following the curve of the marble, a bit like some French sparklers. The rest are four vane. The vanes aren't the fairly well centred relatively consistent type typical of my Heaton or Marble King four vanes. All colours apart from the yellow (which generally fill the marble to the point they look like they're trying to escape with the tips squeezed right to the edge) only fill part of the marble and are mostly off centre and slightly wavy - more like Vitro's. Both the yellow and blue have darker self coloured tips to the veins.

Another bag of clearies... Sizing is less consistent than with my Vitro Aqua Jewels and Heatons, and several have a slightly raised half/raised seam? Colours are slightly different, but given a random clearie I'd struggle to say which manufacturer it belonged to even with all three manufactures bags on the table.

Lovely marble and great photos.

That cage work is exquisite

Best I could do for the glow with a 99p UV torch: Normal light:

Lovely pieces.

And the award to the least successful attempts at Cat Eye's goes to...

Thanks. It's odd there are no brand details on the box if it was only used by Ravenswood.

That's the one. I suspect a you-tube search will give you a sense of the programme. He's a man with style I have a strange love of late 60's early 70's action series. Roger Moore and Tony Curtis in 'The Persuaders' is another that springs to mind. p.s. Should this be in 'The Lounge' rather than 'Study Hall'?

There's a variant of this box labelled 'Buddy's' giving away the contents. This non Buddy's version may have been used by other West Virginian makers, but these are definitely Ravenswood:

I must try and persuade my wife to give Jason King another go...

These things happen It does at least remove some embarrassing id guesses on my part

Is it just me, or have a week or so's worth of posts in the ID bit vanished? Richard.

I'd never have guessed they were Vacor - nice.

Lovely. I've yet to come across a clear-based one.

Thanks folks - trying to rule in/out Ravenswood as a maker. The mystery marble has dried blood streaks that glow bright red under UV. Might point to Cairo instead.

Jerry - unusual angle but yes they're probably French Sparklers. There are some examples in this thread including a box clearly labelled 'Made in France': Some books still list them as German made, along with anything else made in Europe but they're almost certainly French and from the mid-20th Century. I suspect cheap Asian production killed them off. I've been unsuccessfully trying to find out where in France they were made. They frequently show cold-roll marks or orange-peel and the amount of coloured stands varies a lot but the typical form is a transparent marble with threads of colour in half the marble. If fine strands encompass the whole of the marble rather than half then they're sometimes termed 'Wispers' - these are probably 'borderline' some are very fine. I really like them - common on ebay.fr and easily found in the UK.

I'm trying to avoid being swayed by rarity, but I freely confess the unusual does have it's appeal... Can anyone truly say that despite being common and cheap these aren't beautiful though?:

Some very bad people have certainly led me astray My wife has also decided that we're joining the town's open gardens scheme this year, but that the garden needs some work... I've done a little bit more, but it's pretty much on hold (not abandoned) for a few weeks.

Does anyone have any positively identified Ravenswood with red/brown ribbons that glow bright red under UV? None of mine do, but I've only got a small sample... Thanks Richard