Alan

I went to a marble show. In that case it was the Philadelphia show (which I think was short-lived). The diversity of types, manufacturers etc was a bit overwhelming. During that time - handmades were the rage.

Either of these:

That was what I was referring to above. They contain torch worked canes and sometime some dichroic fragments. They are referred to as "H2O Orbs".

Marbles - or large hollow "orbs"?

What are you taking photos with now? You may be able to make it work just fine. Its really about understanding the features of what you have and choosing the one thats best for you. A new camera won't necessarily take better pics than an old one. I use a old camera - choose center-weighted spot focus, lock the lens focus roughly where I want it with the shutter button and then move in and out slightly to get a sharp focus. Using "Auto" settings has the camera making decisions for you (not always well).

The photos you are showing in this thread started out out-of-focus. At a size less than a postage stamp - it isn't so obvious. At a size that is 20-times life size - its going to look bad when it starts life OOF. How are you setting focus before you take the photo? Spot focus? Zone? Auto-focus? If the latter - the camera will often struggle to find a focal point - usually by looking at high contrast zones. On your photo on the clear glass frog - it found that focal point behind and left of the marble on the circular edge of a hole, which you can see is fairly crisply focused. In another photo it seemed to struggle to find a focal point and settled (and not too well) on the background cloth behind the marble (wavy weave had the contrast). Good focus starts with good lighting and understanding how your camera focuses, and your options in that camera for selecting focal points. If your camera is "hunting" for a focus - thats a hint that you need to either change modes, get clutter out of the frame or adjust lighting. The EXIF information is stripped from your photos so I can't see which camera you are using. Its become popular to post photos that are 20-times (or more) larger than the marble. That has caused a lot of folks to sacrifice focus for size. They achieve that by bringing the lens closer to the marble than the focal range. Result: poor, blurry focus. I'm not saying that is the cause of your problem, but I see it a lot. Don't get closer than your camera can sharply focus. Also - optical zoom is far better than digital zoom. The latter introduces compression artifacts.

Oh yeah....

"As made". An excuse for damage on a marble that is somehow supposed to matter less than it is "Hybrid". Supposedly a cross between two distinctly different known marble types, although rarely is. Suggests rarer, therefore more valuable "Same run". Two or more machine-mades that were supposed made at the same moment (despite the fact that type was likely made for years). Suggests rarer, therefore more valuable "Experimental". Suggests inside retro knowledge that the manufacturer was engaged in a specific experiment. The source of this nearly century-old insight in unclear. Applied incorrectly >98% of the time. A few known Akro examples exist. Some like the Sky Blue with Oxblood has glass compatibility issues and usually have annealing fractures. The >1" Orange and Blue patches and corks were made in a very small quantity, all discarded for an unknown reason. Usually suggests rarer, therefore more valuable Funny how most seek to elevate asking value. Ron had enough above that these are enough for me.

You can superglue a bit of fishing monofilament to an edge of the dyed ones and hang them in a sunny window.

Any chance that rotated this way or that - the initials "TVG" make sense?

Modern, torch work. It looks like someone's early playing on the torch experiment. Its not Effetre Millefiori. The Millefiori placement is a bit haphazard based on the pick-up and rounding. Looks like it got a little warmer than they hoped.

Zipwax makes glass "look" better because it adds a coating that fills in scratches, disguising them.

Its quite out-of-focus, so its not really possible to tell.

Some yes - some no: