ManofKent

Oddly I picked up (well they're somewhere over the Atlantic) a group of four clowns - definitely one of the prettiest colour combinations.

Thanks. The non-NLR's seem to come in a large range of colours. Names aren't really important - just kind of fun. I think the yellow on white ought to have a name like 'soft boiled egg'

Thanks - both I'll ponder the Marble King bag and probably bid on the Peltier. Marble King Catseyes seem to be generally priced low and always available,

Lovely piece

I'm happy these are genuine, but am I looking at late 60's or early 70's? No age/swallowing notices, just the address on the back. Actually are there any differences between the late 60's and early 70's Marble King Cats eyes? Am I right in assuming with a Peltier bag of this age they're likely to be Marble King Cats eyes too? Thanks for folks' help and patience!

Thanks! Well on the positive side: I spotted something interesting amongst the 70's Asian Cats eyes and Siso... They're definitely worth the £1.99 I paid for them. They're in beautiful condition, and I've learnt that condition isn't a good indicator of age. They looked too new in the hand with the white base ones showing no wear even under a glass. I thought they were probably more recent Marble Kings that just looked older. I'll try and take better photos of the pairs and odd one. Are there any agreed names for the styles/colours?

Took a chance on a very blurry ebay photo, but pretty sure these are modern... I'm not missing anything am I?

A dedicated space would be wonderful. As I've yet to confess to my wife that I've started collecting I'd better put that idea on hold though

I never had the privilege of corresponding with him, but have recently been reading several of his posts. His knowledge and helpfulness shone through.

Thanks both - they look solid for vintage to me but there's so little information out there on European stuff and I lack experience. I had them as Euro Wispler/Sparklers - they're a good match for photos Roger / browse4antiques posted that I found on google. Slightly better photo for the very wispy veins:

I wish I had the space to collect these toys (ebay listing):

Thanks - I think I've seen most of the ones in the photos already, and a fair few out of the list. The list will be useful to check against though.

I need to improve my photography, but thoughts appreciated:

I'll let someone more knowledgeable answer I'm not getting beyond West Virginian Swirlie. Nice looking marble.

That's beyond ingenious

Thanks - I see the translucence in those links. So much to learn!

Beautiful.

Thanks. I'm getting a better eye. The non-manufacturer bags seem hardest. This sort of single colour marbles that tie into a product's colours are so unconvincing I'm not sure they were even designed to fool: Some of the Mr Peanut bags look plausible at first glance.

Typical English marbles for all but the wealthy were the marbles from Codd bottles well into the 20th Century.

Thanks - this is very useful. The ones in the front look more magenta/pink than red on my monitor, but I guess unless their are colour calibrated charts of known glass colours to directly compare against that's not that useful. So Champions tend to have less well defined ribbons? Is there anything that rules out Heaton?

My understanding (newbie warning ) is that it's a thin layer of coloured glass brushed on either a transparent body or the base colour if the marble isn't clear. I'm pretty sure Vitro Conquerors were this type.

Newbie question. I know it's nearly impossible to be certain what factory produced these swirlies, but is there anyway of narrowing it down to likeliest? Is that shade of pink common? Did all the factories produce single colour on white? I suppose in terms of numbers made Champion produced the biggest volume of swirlies?

It's mainly a case of what's available at a reasonable price that looks interesting at the moment. I'm not interested in how rare they are or whether they're popular with other collectors at the moment. I'm sure at some point I'll be looking more at individual marbles but the shipping system (particularly where sellers use eBay's global shipping programme which doesn't allow combined postage) makes buying individual marbles a costly investment - essentially it's around 22-25 USD shipping for an average bag or 19 USD for a single marble... I've looked at some of the mixed lots but I'm not experienced enough to tell from a photo how much they're padded with modern marbles. The Heaton's looked interesting - and hopefully I'll be able to clearly see the difference between them and the Vitro Cats eyes. I'm not sure I stand much hope of ever telling the West Virginia swirls apart...

Thanks - good thinking!

Wow