Alan

Someday (chuckling inside reflecting on my copious "spare time") we should have a thread with a handmade, machine made and contemporary theme. If anyone comes up with an inspiring central theme around that - have at it.

I collect all three now as well. I think that collecting antique handmades helped me appreciate the skill of design and execution that goes into some contemporaries.

Handmades were my start - and I've never sold any. Here are a few:

"It depends". Different glass has different coefficients of expansion (COE). Every manufacturer has to deal with this and test the compatibility of glass before charging a tank with cullet. If the COE isn't compatible - the glass will not anneal properly and will have internal stresses which will likely cause annealing fractures. (Akro Sky Blue Onyx with Oxblood are a good example of incompatible glass....the vast majority have fractures and ended up being dumped). There are methods to test this compatibility. The first requirement would be to test for compatibility between the Jabo glasses and each individual Akro cullet sample (all Akro glass is not the same COE). I would think that it would require a lot of Akro cullet - more than I'm guessing is lying around. Someone else might know the minimum number of pounds of glass for a single color Jabo requires for a run. The whole deal might be more easily done on a torch.

I'm surprised how many people have tried to buy it from me. I found it in a pile of cullet and an Akro funnel I purchased from a digger for $10.

Its a classic Popeye in all respects. Some time I'll need to weigh it and see what size it would have been if it hadn't fallen off the rollers onto the factory floor to cool.

"It has a small flat spot....."

A few contemps with black: John Hamon Miller: Three Geoff Beetem Filigranas: Geoff Beetem Stardust dichroics: Kaimana Glass (Shanti Devi):

My favorite >1" dia. Popeye:

Red and Yellow Popeye on a fluorescent Vaseline base:

I recuse myself since I am a European sports car KoolAide drinker....

Champion Furnace marbles are very nice. Unfortunately a large percentage of them have annealing fractures due to incompatible glass.

My luck is getting better every day!

Thanks for the visual....

As noted above - the cardboard box is definitely new. It would be helpful if creators of such boxes would stamp he inside the the lid in ink with the year of it's creation (the name of the person or company creating it would be even more noble). I can't think of any reason to NOT permanently stamp them.

+1 on Eternity Glass - who have a sterling reputation for this specific unique requirement.

Here is my new arrival:

Yes.

This box is quite odd. I am familiar with a number of the Salesman's Sample cases and have never seen anything that looked even remotely like this. The doubling-up of types within the box seems difficult to understand the purpose of. I find the labels to be quite odd as well. While I obviously don't know their origin - it seems reasonable to look at them carefully as no other case has ever had anything like them. What is most puzzling perhaps is why Akro would intentionally omit their best sellers from a Salesman's case. The fact that this turned up in NZ is not too surprising. A Salesman's case turned up in Australia roughly 10+ years ago.

I just received this corkscrew from Mike Edmondson. As always - mike does great work! This one has a transparent blue base and is 1-1/16""