Alan

In most things in life (archaeological research seemingly not an exception) to acquire a thing (in your case - access and cooperation) - one need to define a "win-win" in the eye of the collection curator or the responsible archaeologist. Curators and archaeologist IMO want different things. I think it best for you to pause and develop essentially what could be called a classic Business Plan (as brief as it might be) to define to both yourself and OTHERS: 1) What your goals are 2) Your plan of how you will accomplish them 3) The resources you need to accomplish those goals 4) The places those resources exist and who the "gatekeepers" are 5) Their gain (win-win) from that cooperation 6) Your strategy for gaining that cooperation (advocates, Letters of Introduction, opinion-shapers, collection donors etc) Some gatekeepers want homage. Some want tangible intellectual capital (which your results will create). Others are swayed by donor money/donor wishes. I would give thought to a multi-dimension approach to securing cooperation. If one plan fails - have a back-up. Ask senior people in the field "Who knows curator/archaeologist Bob Smith?". Try to avoid going in cold - its too easy to say know. Try to secure the advocacy of a connected person - and have a call or letter proceed your request. Be prepared to define the gain to the field/institution that comes from your work. Of course you would make a copy of your vetted work available to them and acknowledge their assistance in the work (note that in the request). Your thesis advisor(s) can probably tell you who is connected to whom. If a collection is funded by a donor - see if you can connect to that donor (without the curator feeling you went around them). I would give some serious thought how your work can and will support related areas of archaeological work and study. Don't appear to be stand-alone and insulated. The more impactful they believe your work to be - the more likely they will be supportive of it. Hope this helps. Alan

I posted in the linked thread.

I was a member of the Archaeology Society of Maryland for several years and worked both in the field (mostly) and in the lab. My experience was primary in colonial archaeology sites in Maryland and Virginia. From memory (and its been a while) - the marbles we found were located primarily in co-located residential refuse dumps, below colonial floorboards and recovered from waste pits in unused stone water wells. They were almost exclusively fired glazed clay, fired unglazed clay and potentially porcelain. I do not recall locating glass marbles at these sites. The most prevalent type was fired glazed clay - but that may have been unique to the sites I worked based upon the active years of occupancy of the sites - or the local trade routes. I will offer some observations: The types you are interested in tend to be less appreciated and thus less researched and valued within the collecting hobby. You are likely to find less documented research in these areas. There are also fakes made and sold commercially of these types. Take care of where you get your information and look for multiple supporting references. Some of us are aware of what the fakes look like, and in some cases who has sold them. I only note this so prevent it from interfering with your research. A suggestion that I have not thought through fully: Consider comparing marbles (fired) with clay pipe stems for commonality of material. Since you know that you can date pipe stems accurately by a known and trusted method - commonality and/or changes in the clay over time common between the stems and marbles could be an interesting research area. If it were me - I would think that the field would benefit from documented research that catalogs toy marbles found at sites by a.) Type of site, b.) Known dates of site usage, c.)Estimated strata date that the marble was found at, and d.) the type and decoration index to the aforementioned data fields. The site documentation should contain most of those... except for perhaps some of d.) for which you could borrow description syntax from the collecting hobby. Such a compendium/cross-reference would be (IMO)valuable to archaeology for lab cataloging. Just a thought. Regards, Alan

Guess: 71,000 Disclaimer: No marbles were harmed in the creation of this baseless estimate.

I'm not a marble manufacturer - but it rings odd to me that the primary thing which is hurting U.S. marble manufacturing is foreign imports. I would think that it would be the fact that U.S. children largely stopped playing marbles in the 1960s. Now if one is primarily manufacturing paint can agitators (as mentioned in the piece) by the wholesale ton at 28 cents/lb - then I don't know much about that market. But those aren't marbles in my opinion... they are now glass spheres. I have no idea if a U.S. marble manufacturer can keep its door open making industrial items in the face of rising costs, government regulations etc. I believe that the days of kids playing marbles are gone - not to return. This lends some perspective to what marble collectors have available to them today. Alan

A movie reference.

I use Firebox with DownloadHelper plugin for capturing media from "problem" pages. My link

He wrote a letter about receiving the box as a child and how he lost track of them - only to discover them many years later in his family's trunk. When I saw how choked up he was when he was going to sell them - I declined to buy them. He clearly had a lot of childhood memories in that box. Only after he insisted and another 3 months passed did I agree to take them.

In their native habitat. I was fortunate enough to purchase this box from the elderly gentleman who originally received them as a gift when he was 7 years old.

Steve is probably buying up Cyan Slag futures as we speak.

IMO - the "Lutz" in machine mades is actually a chemical reaction in the glass, not a purposeful additive as had been suggested. ETA: I am referring to VINTAGE machine mades. Humble pardon to my Jabo friends - whose talent in applying lutz is well-recognized.

What do you mean? I've seen many women dressed like that had mustaches.

The truth is out.

A few:

Sooooo Griff - did you lose a bet?

The first thing I do is look to see if it is a handmade or machine made. That takes just a second. Then I look at the glass colors. Then I look at pattern.

Handmades or machine mades?

From the photos - I would say that it is a novice.

Certain components of that are very much in the Pavcraz style.

Nice!