oldmarblenut

memories...... the few you have you better keep. Peace!

LOL..... I like the Tank wash runs the best, then again, Smitty did a fine job this last time.

It was the inclusion of mica in green base glass to resemble the look of the mineral aventurine. Goldstone or lutz does not contain mica, it is coper crystals. I have studied glass for many years and the terms goldstone and aventurine are directed at two seperate substances. The purple and blue goldstone spheres are simple goldstone in a purple or blue matrix. Now to confuse it even more, Reichenbach has a color called blue aventurine, it does not contain mica, it is goldstone in blue base glass. LOL I keep the two in seperate categories as they have major differences, the only relation being they both sparkle. my 2 cents may be worth a nickle in the right hands. Peace.scott

Okie, I haven't thought about selling any of them till you asked, I've seen the other wash outs selling for $5-$10 on Ebay, since I don't do Ebay any longer I'll accept an offer via. PM, if there was a certain marble in the photo it might be hard for me to find that particular one since I put them all back into a jar LOL. Thanks Sue, I was seeing the same thing in the color combo's of recent runs.

Goldstone and aventurine are very differnt, goldstone being made of coper crystals and aventurine being made of mica. The original Italian name for goldstone is "avventurina" or some similar word or phrase indicating its accidental discovery, hence the mineral name "aventurine" for forms of feldspar or quartz with mica inclusions that give a similar glittering appearance. The technical term for this optical phenomenon, "aventurescence", is also derived from the same source. Yet another name for goldstone is "aventurine glass", but this should be discouraged to avoid confusion with the minerals. - from wickpedia Sometimes goldstone is called gold aventurine, I'm not sure why but some of the glass color supplyers use this term. I've never seen a gold aventurine, however I have seen gold colored mica as well as a few colors. There was once a debate about green aventurine happening as a chemical reaction when making the color green, the debate was over Akro's use of aventurine, there are no records indicating Akro ever used it however there are Akro's with definate sparkles in green glass, I have had many green based snakes with what appeared to be aventurine yet I have never seen any sparkles in any other Akros green glass. I speculate this was due to chemical reaction as most green glasses are made using coper and a bad mix of ingedients could have caused the coper to crystalize. I hope this helps some understand the difference between the two. Peace.scott

wash out 5-13-09 hard to pick a favorite out of this group.

OK.... I have a confession to make. I went to Jabo while I was working at Fenton last week, they had just started to rinse the tank, clear glass marbles were running through the machine, wow, that was boring, Smitty showed me how they made the tank guineas, Griff was playing with mica and another fellow was getting ready to drop some color in, we chatted a little about the colors and how to apply them, we chatted about what ones not to use together and what ones would work well and shortly after I was dropping them into the tank. POOF.... Dave showed up and caught me atop the tank with a devilish grin and a handful of colors, I think it was an amazing moment, Dave seeing me of all people dropping colors. 3-1/2 hours later we were done, we managed to nearly fill one of the large barrel bottoms with amazing marbles sized from peewee to about 15mm or 9/16", as we were making them Griff and I were picking hot gems out of the catch buckets, typicaly this is risky as the marbles were not allowed to slowly cool in the catch buckets. I took home a small handfull of the little beauties as I couldn't wait to see what we did. 1-1/2 hours later I arrived home and looked closely at the group of 25 I had taken, not one fracture, no orange peeled surfaces and very little if any as made marks. The next day I returned to Jabo to see the whole group and examine them, after a long talk on the previous nights actions we opened the boxes to find nearly all the marbles intact and beautiful, my estimate on the loss rate was less than 1%, my guess is the smaller sizes were able to cool quicker and became more stable with the careful choice of colors. I had an amazing time and thank RH for allowing me to play a little, I think the smaller size marbles are amazing, some even had the old style Vitro patterns. About 10 years ago I rebuilt a 1934 Vitro machine, it wasn't until the other day I had the pleasure of doing what I dreamed about a decade ago. I'll post pix tonight... Peace.scott

If I could imagine a Martin Leighnarrve transitional...... I think you hit it! great work B.

Ron, I'll gladly make one for you, just pick out about a dozen like marbles, cracked is ok but the cleaner the better. I was at Jabo tonight after blowing at Fenton, I have to say, cleaning out a furnace sure can be fun. old jabo #4 is available, I deliver it to Duffy tomorow eve. (good chance it wont leave the factory) Peace.Scott

Sweet marbles B! I'd like to get one er two of em, send me a message.

well gee thanks Edna, now can you tell me what it is rather than tell me what it isn't? Lets think positive this time...... Look closely at the colors and ignore the white, I see deep oxblood (could ya'll have called it purple ox?), heavy green aventurine and what looks like a tan/olive as well as some cherry red? I'm seeing those 4 colors in the chunks I have.

I think it might be "hard core" or something like that?

Oxblood and aventurine show very well, I'm sure it is a Tribute to freindship run but does this particular marble have a name? it's on a white backround so don't include that in the marble mix, the one blob seen in the close-up was 1/2 a marble so that is the colors. old jabo #4 stands 7" tall enjoy! scott

I look foreward to 2010 Marble weekend, I sure miss the BBQ's I used to have, I think I'll have to figure something out and do it again. This week I will try to make as many "old jabo's" as I can, I'll be blowing at Fenton Wed-Thursday, I'm gonna try to get to Jabo Thursday eve.

I didn't get a photo of #3, actualy I have no clue who bought it, if anyone knows who it is, could I get a photo for my records?

Thanks Felicia, both #2 and # 3 are now part of someones collection, #1 was given to Dave. I'll be making more soon, I picked up a bunch of nice cullet and marbles to play with, I'm debating on the size though, if I make a piece too large it may be too expensive for the average collector. The WVmcc show was nice, another chance to see old faces and say hello, didn't buy much this time, seems some dealers didn't want to sell the nice vintage marbles they brought, instead they had a couple tables full of new Jabos, not sure why someone would bring cases full of great looking vintage marbles only to try to sell $3-$10 Jabos? oh well, it probably saved me a few $$ anyway. Peace! scott

I believe MK and Jabo both use Fenton burmese cullet, I've seen it in the experimentals too so there will be some monern marbles that will flouresce, Cambridge glass had a nice green that flouresces very bright, many people don't even know they have green vaseline depression glass cause they never would think to check all greens. Christensens electric colors flouresce with the salmon glow.

Identifying a marble with a black light isn't an easy thing to do, some say that all old marbles flouresce and that simply isn't true, then again, many common Peltier baseballs will flouresce, as well as many yellows, reds and oranges will flouresce with a salmon/orange glow, green and yellow vaseline glass contain urianium oxide thay glows the typical bright green under UV. UV light can be a fun tool finding treasures you didn't realize you had but to use it as an identifying tool is probably an arguable subject. Have fun, take a look at your blue/red and blue/yellow Heatons.

I have a few, whatcha looking for? I like Akro's, non dug Akro's.

make it clear that you want HAND GROUND vintage agates, there are plenty available and at reasonable prices, don't accept any.... "they polished them off" answers. I'm sure if you ask around you will find plenty here have them, maybe a trade is in the midst? Peace.scott

wow ! that is a rare onion, the pontil is perpendicular to the axis, now thats some tricky craftmanship, seems someone forgot to grind the pontil on it too?

Thanks marie but I don't want to mess with it, I have some Blenko amberina, it's not very freindly, to get it to work properly you need to overheat it till flashes to amber, only then will it strike red, colors like that are best in the furnace. Thanks anyway. scott

thanks Duff, round up some good cullet, variety would be good, maybe you can ID the cullet too?

good clean jabo cullet or clean halves or clean flats from one of the late runs? that's what is working best, the good colors they used in the runs is a shame to let go to waste, I've only seen a little factory cullet in the mixes so far so everything seems to look positive. I've started to catalogue these and will continue to number them as made, I'm going to include a marble of that run or piece of the cullet used for each piece, also a certificate identifying the piece.

here's old jabo #2 crushed about 6 marbles and layered them in crystal with a white background to help the colors show. marbles were red/white/blue mica/baby blue.... at least thats the colors I see here. the photo is crooked, not the vase, about 6-1/2" tall. didn't get to play today, hopefully I can get a couple done tomorow.