oldmarblenut

Thanks T, Duff & Felicia. It was a chunk of fall harvest cullet about the size of a womans fist. Duffy gave it a suitable name, remembering good times and people close is something we all need, kinda keeps us sane. Now for my insanity..... I've got special plans for this wonderful piece of glass. Peace! scott

Here ya go Duffy..... Jabo cullet vase #1 the little bit of oxblood that was showing did survive, not much aventurine in this stuff, now that you can see the colors I need a name. stands about 7-1'2" tall, I cased it in crystal to help the colors show, I worked it rather fast so I just went with a freeform shape, #2 is in the kiln, it's a bud vase made with crushed marbles as frit, looks nice, we'll see how it does.

well I don't think you could see the orange on the marbles, we'll see what color it is tomorow.

hey Duffy.... Jabo vase # 1 is in the kiln, lets cross our fingers and hope it makes it through. it was a chunk of cullet, yellow/orange/ox/white/green? (nice orange was hiding inside). I'm not sure what run it was from, maybe you can remember the colors and give it a name? I tryed a 6 marble vase, it had lots of aventurine and blue mica with red and white, it didn't make it, 6 marbles just isn't enough color to make a nice piece, the colors wash out as I blow it larger, the aventurine and mica was very heavy but with the washout of colors it didn't look all that nice anyway, I think 10-12 marbles is more like it. I have a ton of mica, thinking about making purple mica, how much of an individual color is typicaly used during a run? I could make a few lbs. if anyone would be interested. I'll try another soon. hey Griff... got cullet?? Peace! scott

I almost forgot... Griff's outstanding double ingots!

Oxblood may swirl all through some marbles, ie..oxblood swirls and bricks, however, it lies on the surface of most marbles, I think this was due to the cost of the color, much cheaper to just lay some on the surface than to let it swirl throughout. The range of color in oxblood shows from very pale light oxblood to rich deep ox with black streaks, most likely due to temperature and melt cycles. Copper being the key ingredient, makes green, blue and red glass, careful not to forget gold aventurine, the best oxblood when burned out.

It was a great day, seeing many of my old friends and trading/purchasing a few nice marbles (my fav of the day a 7/8" maglight indian with green base). Good to see you Duffy, enjoy the marble from Ray and I, not many exist. I look foreward to making you a few nice items from the cullet. This was Matt's 3rd marble show and he had a blast, thanks to all who purchased a marble from him and showed him the "real" marble world. I have to thank Smitty for his generousity and great looking marbles! Special thanks to Dave for the invite and the sweet marble from his personal stash! I really enjoyed the display of Alox advertising and meeting the owners. Thanks to the WVMC for the effort! I'll be blowing glass at Fenton for a few days and will try to stop in Jabo while in the area.

Nice looking marble but I would not place it in the PA Dutch category, it lacks a diffinitive pinwheel of PA Dutch style, notice your (Sue's) marble, it has that petaled pinwheel design unlike the dug example that has a pointed star and wedding ring like pattern, it would be nice to see a clear color photo, something just doesn't look right about this marble. I've been collecting since I was about 9 years old and have never seen a marble similar, not saying they don't exist but I have seen everything from mildly pornographic chinas to extreme scenery with 5 or more colors. What are the chances this marble is another modern decorated marble thrown in with a group of commons, it does look clear and unfaded compared to the marbles in the group. As for the marking resembling an early factory design, I'm sure that if this was made by any known potter in England there would be some sort of evidence suppoting they made marbles, English pottery is very well known and very heavily collected, the history of English potters is well known and documented. This text is from a major discussion about "pearlware".... Major difficulty concerns the origins of pearlware. The traditional view was that Josiah Wedgwood 'invented' or 'developed' the ware over a period of years and then marketed it in 1779. The authority for this is his own letters to his partner Thomas Bentley. The published versions of these contain much fascinating detail of his pursuit of 'a white Earthenware body, and a colourless or white opaque glaze, very proper for Tea & other wares.'1 The ware he eventually produced was basically a creamware body, though modified to make it whiter by the inclusion of china clay, and which was covered with a glaze containing some china stone, but most importantly a small quantity of cobalt which gave a bluish cast to the glaze. (Incidentally, the creamware glaze derived its colour from the iron oxide in the glaze.) It is this cobalt blue glaze over a whitish body which is regarded as the single most important diagnostic feature in identifying pearlware. I can't see the blue, but of course it's a black and white photo. I would suggest this marble is either German or possibly fake. either way, I would be hesitant to purchase it. Historical evidence is what I look for most when trying to identify any marble, remeber when the CA exotics hit the market? I had no less than 25 lbs of CA cullet from different sources and different locations on the property, none of it conained any proof that CA made those marbles, it was purely the lack of evidence that made my choice not to buy them. JMHO and 2 cents. peace! Scott

Great photos! Love the Pelts with ox, I've had a few and do consider them "uncommon" and worthy of praise. I think the Germans were first to find true "oxblood" useful in marbles, yet I do believe they discovered it by accident. In many cases "oxblood" coloring is actualy burnt ruby glass, red is one of the most dificult colors in glass, either copper ruby, gold ruby or selenium ruby, it is very temperature and atmospheric sensitive, making a batch of ruby glass was risky and costly, one error in the batch or the melt cycle and the glass would not be the fine ruby red they hoped for, many glass companies over the years have had to deal with this problem, many took advantage of it and a very few actualy figured out how to make it better "oxblood" and use it specificaly. Copper is the common base ingredient, gold aventurine can burn to a very nice oxblood. Thanks for the photo's!

I have seen burnt Christmas Trees, the green was still translucent to a point and not ever opaque black. Some black glass I use will look metalic when heated just so, could this be a similar result? looks to be a bit of blending of the red and black also? that could give a burnt green/brown appearance. Nice marble whatever you wish to call it.

There are Miller Rebels without aventurine, the way the color bleeds to a brown/greenish leads me to think Rebel without aventurine.

I used to buy the Mr.Peanut bags from a wholesaler for $4- a bag, can't remember the name but they sold lots of "old stock" from printing companies and advertisers, they sold well for fantasy bags with MK's, they also had the Sinclair and Gulf bags as well as the Santa Clause marble bags, I never bought those types. the Akro bag in question looks original however the way the staples are rusted/disolved does look odd, a common trait of old staples is they were round wire with a little flattening on the bent over tabs, any staple that looked flat across the top was new and commonly used on the fantasy bags with a drop of acid or something to rust them, a typical sign of that was a small stain only at the staple and no evidence of water damage to the paper. JMHO

Thanks Bo, John and Lou. It's good to see some people do understand the point I was trying to make. I was not trying to make enemies nor was I saying they intentionaly did any wrong, mistakes happen, deal with it like an adult, accept the facts given to you and handle them in a responsible manner. They did a fine job at making pretty little glass balls and I don't doubt it was fun doing it, I would do it too if given the oportunity. but, if there became a problem, I would simply deal with it and not sweep it under the rug, it's called responsibility. Peace!

I don't recall whinning about anything, I think you must have read something else entirely or are a bit confused about the subject at hand. I've noticed over the last couple months people talking about some of their new Jabos begining to fracture, most common are Aces and ones containing large amounts of gold aventurine. As a profesional glass worker I felt a need to bring this subject into light as most people do not understand what was happening to some of the marbles they purchsed recently and as some of the Jabos I have are now broken, not broken from play or misuse but broken due to compatability issues and or annealing problems. I really don't care how you spend your money, buy beachfront property in Arizona if you like, but if that land never becomes a beach, don't be surprized you just got screwed for your investment. I'm not saying all the new Jabos are going to fail, all I am saying is the harsh facts, some will fail and the reasons behind it. Now lets throw a spin at this..... Imagine Goodyear making faulty tires, do you think the dealers would just ignore the warnings and sell them anyway? of course not, they would quickly and openly admit they had a problem and remove the product from market as well as replace the faulty tires already sold, even if they had a few miles on them. But, then again we are not talking about tires, we are talking about little glass balls, ones we spend our hard earned dollars for. I know one thing most of you will not argue, spending $10 for something that is broken is just not acceptable, if in your case it is acceptable, you must be the fool with the money that our parents told us to stay away from. Peace!

Harsh it may be but have you ever had one of the marbles you dug suddenly fracture? I know by personal experience this does happen to some of the dug Akros when they are unearthed.

Another thing to consider is the fact that the marbles have not been properly annealed, in effect you are "tempering" the glass by removing the tempurature stresses of different colors and glasses, slowly cooling it past the strain points to a stable structure. To do this the glass must be placed in an oven before it falls below 850 degrees, this is nearly imposible as marble screws typicaly cool the glass below 850 even when the screws are preheated, I know this as I have rebuilt and used a 1934 Vitro marble machine, I have experienced what happens in a controled environment. Marble manufacturers do not actualy anneal the product, they simply let a bin or bucket fill up and put it away to cool on its own, this method has it's flaws as some of the marbles in every bucket or bin will fracture due to cooling too fast, this is totaly acceptable as this is the method used for many years and evident by the amounts of "cull" found at every marble site, cull being the marbles that didn't pass QC and were NOT TO BE SOLD. The only way to prevent annealing issues is to properly anneal each and every piece of glass, any piece of glass that has not been cooled correctly can and in most cases will fracture when all the atmospheric conditions are right. Has anyone ever had a paperweight suddenly pop in two? Paperweights made in the glass factories by workers on their breaktimes etc have been typicaly cooled in vermiculite and sometimes even warm sand or other insulating materials with the intent of slowing the cooling rate, this is sometimes effective depending on the conditions, however, if you take one of those paperweights made 50 years ago and look at it under labratory equipment will shows signs of heavy stress just waiting to be released. Again I'd like to say the new Jabos sure are pretty, just be aware that some factors are taking effect. Peace!

Thanks for showing sincere interest in the subject Lou, I think this is something that really needs to be understood. Lou asked for more info on glass compatibility issues so I will do my best to help. To better understand compatibility, let’s consider what happens when glass gets heated in a kiln. Like many other substances, glass expands when it gets hot and contracts when it cools. This change in density, which occurs at the molecular level, can be measured in a laboratory. A typical one inch piece of Bullseye brand glass, for example, will expand 0.0000090 inches for each 1 degree Centigrade increase in temperature. This rate, which is commonly known as the Coefficient of Expansion (COE), is usually expressed as a whole number, rather than as a long decimal figure. Most Bullseye glass, for example, is said to have a Coefficient of Expansion of 90, and you will often hear glass artists refer to it as COE90 glass. Spectrum, another common glass, has a COE of around 96, while Corning’s Pyrex glassware has a 32 COE. Standard window glass, referred to as "float" glass by the glassmaking community, has a COE that is usually around 84-87, while Effetre (Moretti) glass, commonly used for lampworking, has a 104 COE. These differences in expansion and contraction may not sound like much, but they are very significant on the molecular level. A 10 inch length of Bullseye glass, for example, will shrink about 0.046 inches (about 1 mm) in cooling from around 950 degrees Fahrenheit to room temperature. By contrast, a 10-inch piece of Spectrum glass will shrink about 0.049 inches over the same temperature range. That difference - .003, or three thousandths of an inch - sounds trivial, but it’s enough to ensure that you can’t fuse Bullseye and Spectrum together. You can sometimes get away with using two different glasses where the COE is only one or two apart (say, a 90 with a 91), but not always. Sometimes even two glasses with the same Coefficient of Expansion can not be fused together. That’s because the laboratory test that determines COE takes place at a different temperature than the one the warm glass artist often uses. There are really only two ways to know if your glass is compatible: • Use glass that has already been "Tested Compatible" by the manufacturer. • Conduct compatibility testing on your own. This is a matter of fusing small squares of the glass to be tested to a base glass of known COE, then examining the fused strip by sandwiching it between two strips of polarized film, this will show signs of stress and tension within the glass itself and between the incompatible glasses. Some of this info was taken from text books on art glass and websites, no intent to infringe on copyrighted materials, this is simply my best effort to educate those who actualy care about what can happen and in fact what is happening to some of the modern Jabos esp. the aces and those containing gold aventurine. As a professional glass artist I can't help but speak my mind when it comes to good glass vs. bad glass, a slight example of "bad" glass would be a series Blenko wanted to make, they wanted to apply a blue thread on their amber glass, even though the items produced looked stunning at first, they soon showed compatibility issues and the idea was scrapped, not one piece of that glass was sold, Blenko being wise enough to know that if that product hit the market there would surely be serious backlash and legal issues. I do not know exactly what colors were used, all glass color makers such as Reichenbach, Gaffer, Kugler and Zimmerman all have detailed info on the colors they make, Bullseye, Morretti and Spectrum glass also have this info available for good reason. Gold aventurine is probably one of the most troublesome colors, used carefully it will shine bright and last forever, if used in excess it will surely cause failures, I have tryed just about every color cobination possible in my 20+ years of glass, every failure is logged and I refrain from making the same mistake twice. I currently use 149 different colors including 5 different aventurines, I know what I can mix and what I can not. I have also used marble cullet from all but one manufacturer (Peltier) to blow small vases etc. even though the color may be from the same factory does not mean the glass is compatible. I hope this info is helpful and the makers/investors and sellers start to show some responsibility for the product they produced. I hope anyone who has bought "bad" glass stands up and demands their money back or file due complaints with the proper authorities. The world has become a sad mess of greed vs. profit, as an idividual I can do little, as a group we can make changes to protect ourselves from those who want our money. In the end I will say this............. Don't be blinded by beauty! Peace!

They sure are pretty, shame most wont survive long, I have 10 of the new Jabo's, 7 of them are fractured now, I'm wondering on the refund policy? The one with the gold aventrine on the surface will certainly fail in time, gold on the surface will become dull and in time may start to flake off, trust me, I've played with glass long enough to know what works and what doesnt. At first my thoughts of these runs was optomistic, I thought maybe there would be some real winners when the color combos etc. found the compatibility, shame the hard facts are that the colors used in most cases will fail, at this point my thoughts are no longer optomistic, I patiently wait the backlash as more and more people find their $40 Jabo popped in half, in my opinion, even a $10 loss is enough to open the eyes of the masses. I praise some of the makers for their efforts, unfortunately I cant support the new marbles as they have proven without a doubt that compatibility is going to be an ongoing issue, I once would say "I feel for your loss" at this point all I can say is... shame they didnt test the compatibility before producing and selling the faulty merchandise and shame the buyers were blinded by beauty. All that hype and look what is happening to the marbles. Glass is a mysterious and wonderful thing, used carefuly it can produce items of beauty that will last millions of years, used carelessly and you have nothing but junk that will only last long enough for the makers to gain a hefty profit. I WANT MY MONEY BACK! is what most of the buyers should be screamimg. I wonder if Jabo was wise enough to have the "investors" sign a waiver holding Jabo harmless in the event the product fails? This could be history making after all, a lawsuit over bad product... OK pretty looking bad product. Just my 2 cents, take it as you wish.

Their furnaces are quite crude and yes, gas guzzlers, one problem with building new equipment is the massive costs, they have run using the same type of equipment for so long that it would talk a big sack of $$ to update everything, not to mention the annealing lear (gas also) we have talked with them about updating their furnaces, adding recuperators etc., the cost is just too much right now, one 600lb furnace could cost as much as $50,000, they have about 6 main colors so thats about $300,000 just to replace the furnaces, they use a large central glory hole with many ports, it too is a gas hog, removing that and adding a glory hole to each shop would cost additional $$, the biggest cost would be replacing the annealing lear, it has run for many many years and is a workhorse, cost to replace it would be outrageous. Give them time to catch up, look what happened to Fenton, they cryed wolf saying they were going to close, sales skyrocketed and they recovered well enough to stay open, not to mention a big tax credit to cut their debt. they have also done a little research on using other manufacturers to cut their costs of production, we now make 4 items for Fenton and are we are working on other products, apparently it's cheaper to pay us to make the items than it is to do it themselves.

We work very closely with Blenko, currently they are at a stand still with production, gallery is open and they will fire a furnace to fill an order if needed, they sell our glass in the gallery and recently placed a decent order. As is stands, they have a huge gas bill to pay, no plans on closing indefinately, they just need to catch up on their bills. So much for Obama's "save America" plan

Whats wrong with the old Garrand? they sure do knock things over and run quite smooth if you can carry the weight, I do prefer a .243 for hill to hill combat though :ninja:

Take all the leftover cullets from all the "experimental" runs and produce a 5/8", run the tank till its empty and sell the marbles for charity, every cent to go directly to the charity, all workers and staff to donate their time, I'm sure it can all be done in a day. maybe the previous investors can cover the gas bill, seems they made a bundle on the last years marbles, maybe someone can donate nifty packaging, a good gesture would really show strength in the marble community. This year people should learn how to give.............. no hype, no speculation. Peace!

Christensen and Akro have the best marbles with black, Peltier used black and black aventurine to great success. my favs are Akros, so many varieties. maybe this should be a thread to post your pics of marbles with black? Peace!

Thanks Guys! I didn't mean any foul with the dinamite, just wanted to point out just how important simple things can be. Honestly, the guys with the 3 head polishers can do fine jobs on anyones marbles for a very small fee, it's worth the cost to save yourself the risk, another thing to consider is to keep what you polish for your own collection, I've seen too many polished marbles running through the community, sooner or later they can hurt the hobby like so many other factors have. Peace!

some people just dont get it griff....... here... take this dinamite and shorten the fuse a bit, put some lube on it and put it where the sun dont shine, then back up against a campfire, careful not to burn your cheeks, in a few seconds you wont know the diference between a polished marble or a rock. Glass dust is hazardous, colors contain LEAD, silicosis is a form of cancer, arsenic can ruin your sex drive! Anyway, I tryed to give some solid advice. my good deed for the day!