Alan

As I have mentioned before, I saw an entire wood Army footlocker 90% full to the top edge of just dug Popeye patches. It was an astonishing number of them. The guy just couldn't get anyone to buy them cheap and haul them off. There is a monster amount of these out there.

I'd want to see traceability before I believed any of that. Anyone can invent a story.

Fried marble. A fried a few in my day.

A Popeye patch is a Popeye where the spinner cup didn't spin or otherwise produce a corkscrew.

Patch, not a Popeye.

First - I'm not telling other people what to think, or do. People come to this hobby with different intentions, level of interest and commitment and resources. Reading your post, I see huge differences between how you came to the hobby - and how I arrived. That may be cause of very different perspectives. I gained my experience in Identification at shows. I usually go for 3 days, and spend 16 hours/day in the room and hallways looking at every marble, talking about them, understand how to accurately identify it - almost always with 1-3 other people in the conversations other than the owner. For a decade there was a group of hard-core collectors at the New Philly and Amana shows that would lock the door of a room around 11Pm and we would open our cases and pass key marbles around and examine and discuss them with intense study until 4:00AM. We would see and handle everything. Its was amazing what came out of the woodwork. We would spend time on rare stuff, strange stuff, errors, dug material, manufacturer ephemera, boxes spanning everything imaginable. It was called the "4AM Club". Les Jones, Bill Cokenhauer, Albert from WV - about a group of 10. And that was on top of spending all day in the rooms and hallways. The ability to learn at a phenomenal pace was right there - and you came to know whose opinion to totally rely upon. When someone didn't know, they said so. That was your reputation. Posting pics of a pile of marble on the Internet asking for ID is so fraught with piecemeal error, guessing and just plain speculation with no real basis is a helluva way to learn. I realize that there are a lot of people that don't go to shows - maybe never have or will. That (IMO) is a shame because they are left to the wilds of the Internet ID threads. And we have the hi-jinks of the recent $3,000. Jabo thread Cyclone/Cobra thread and its many infamous predecessors. I won't even get started on Facebook silliness where everything seems UV light reactive, thus making it rare and valuable. I didn't have to suffer the common ID innacuracies that many have had to drag themselves through. I was able to learn quickly in the areas I was interested in surrounded by the most experienced people in the hobby. In-person ID lessons in small expert groups transcends the common way-out-of-focus ID pics that the so common now. I'm not telling people not to buy 50-cent marbles. I'm just saying that I don't want to - because I know what those become to me. And personally, I don't prefer to use them as piecemeal ID fodder. I know there is a much, much better way to learn - and build bonds with face-to-face dealings at show. Just my personal preference. Other come to the hobby in different ways.

More like that I listened to early advice that it was better to buy one $40. marble that I really liked, instead of 40 - $1.00 marbles that looked kind of interesting.

I've always been pretty focused in the types I collect, though they range from handmades, machine mades and contemporaries. I have always avoided "strays", unless I absolutely HAD to take them as part of a deal. Then I moved them out cheaply and quickly at shows. I still have a few around, but not enough to be worth finding them.

Agree, Master

x3

Those marks are play damage from impacts.

The combined glass doesn't match with Akro marbles that come to mind.

I have zero reason to believe that it is MK. Zero.

I'll just note that "asking" are not "sold" prices. Don't feed the inflation intent.

I cannot agree more. I own a few pieces that 95% of people would look at, blink once and not grasp the import of. And that's fine.

Those are great colors. That's been stored out of sunlight for much of it's life. Its in great condition too.

As far as objects - I have a nicely used Akro funnel, a few plungers and two spinner cups. I like them because I'm focused on production methods.

These two:

Looks like new torch work.

No MK hallmarks for me. Foreign a real possibility.

Most silver and milky oxbloods hover around +_5/8". There are plenty of the veneer types (often with red on white bases) that approach 1" dia. There is a unusual oxblood on a opaque/translucent base type that 99% of people have never seen. Roger dug them in his early dig days. I have seen three, own 2. One is 1-1/32 and the second is 1-9/32. In both the oxblood is primarily subsurface, rising to the surface in bands. Unusual and old looking.

I suggest thinking of it in terms of a small "glass trades village". Sources of circa late 1800s materials and chemicals would be limited and well-known within very low cost limitations. Techniques are known and shared in the small craft community. There were no secrets. Each shop could simply duplicate anything seen with no real effort. That leads to fairly homogeneous products.

I wouldn't do it - but thats just me. If you want to spend money and time on a basket case - get it polished. YMMV

If you are referring to cane-cut handmades, my understanding is that they were made in shops primarily concentrated in glass-making towns such as Lauscha. Glasfabrik Wernerhutte was a large facility, but its important to understand that marbles were just a fraction of their output. Scientific glass, decorations etc were the primary output.

No.