Alan

I measure a man or woman by their character - not by the size, content or supposed value of their "collection". What one owns is no reflection upon their knowledge or contribution to this hobby. A large or small collection is a poor crutch for an ill-considered remark.

Look up the term "Graal Technique".

Akro Sparkler with heavy aventurine:

How many runs have there been in April? It seems like quite a few.

Ravenswood was very consistent about using a bright, pure white for their bases. In contrast, most Champions I see have a gray-ish white.

I agree with Les.

Like most marbles - this "aventurine" is simply excess colorant (metal salts) that precipitated out. In other words - they added too much colorant.

I agree that the second is a Simpson Inhabited Planet - bit something is not quite right about it. Josh doesn't normally release pieces that look like that. Perhaps it is some very early work.

I picked these up about 10 days ago. They are either Christensen or Jabo.

Email them to me and I'll post them for you.

What was it originally?

I (unfortunately) sold it many years ago. It was said to be a German machine made. There were a couple running around back in that day - all believed to be German/European. Nothing about it in hand suggested contemporary. I'd love to own another.

I am very sorry to hear of your loss.

We haven't done this in 4-5 months - and it has been popular in the past, so lets do it once again. Look at the last marble photo post in the thread, Choose ONE color from that marble and post a marble photo of yours that matches it as closely as possible. Successive posters choose from the last post in the thread. Here we go:

Expressions of the era spawned the creation of the word "dour".

I know these marbles. They were made by a caveman that lived in the area now known as Atlanta, Georgia. He hand crafted them from precious dinosaur bone. They were discovered by Civil War soldiers while digging defensive trenches as Sherman marched in. Very rare.

Based solely on the photos - I would presume it to be of modern creation. The glass and the figure look "all wrong". I prefer to not offer specific diagnostics to avoid helping an artist clean up their game.

^ Ditto what Griff said.

They had devices on most machines to sort and catch non-round marbles. A few get through the quality control process though.

Those particular pontils normally have a fire-polished top pontil that is a little "raw" (or open) and a faceted or ground bottom pontil. I recommend that folks not underestimate the ability of these types to fool even experienced collectors. That particular artist has caused more past problems than anyone that is better know for repros today. Quite a number of people paid big dollars for his work - mistaking them for vintage. If he spent 1-2 minutes more on each piece - they would be far harder to detect. Put them in a cigar box at a famous flea market and presto. Its not if they could cause a problem - they HAVE in the past. The examples I pictured were not made to fool anyone. I'll also note that collectors have plunked down several hundreds of dollars each for machine made fakes or reproductions that were far, far less convincing.

There is an "artist" that has been making fakes/reproduction for going on 20 years (possibly longer). He was the first artist doing so that I recall - and there was quite a stir when his name was mentioned ~15 years ago. He used to turn out some very high end pieces. He sort of quietly disappeared for a while - then quietly reappeared at a non-vintage show 3 years ago (IIRC). It was the only chance I had to meet him. 100% of what was on his table was knockoffs of handmades. I was struck by three things: 1. The quality of what he made - even when he wasn't trying that hard. 2. His ability to make high-end handmade knockoffs with soft Moretti glass. 3. The presence of fairly accurate blowholes and faceted or ground pontils He occasionally thew in whimsical additions such as Lutz or mica in handmades like Indians - where you would not find such materials. To be fair - he never represented his work as anything other than torch-made by him. I had no doubts that an unprincipled person could buy one of his pieces for $15 - and resell it to an unsuspecting person for 30 times that cost. Some of his work (I will not be identifying the artist): The pink glass in this piece is almost dead-on to that found in Banded Opaques: Transparent blue core: Oxblood on opaque green: Transparent green glass core with mica: