Alan

I'll photo one of mine and put it in the Vaseline glass thread for you.

It goes to show - never write from memory! I pulled the Matthews pieces I got at Wheaton this year - an lo and behold - the Comedy and Tragedy is in vaseline glass (somehow clear stuck in my mind). I ALSO remembered (duh...) that I purchased a large Stars Air Trap in vaseline glass. Anyway - here is Comedy and Tragedy: Stars:

Thatks for the Mark link - I have not been aware of his work. Are the Muurray protos yours? I have two Man in the Moons - one with sunglasses. I'd LOVE to have the Monkeyman piece - very nice! I watched Bill make Man in the Moon piece at his Wheaton Village demo ~3-4 years ago. His mold technique was interesting. I hope he decides/is able to make marbles again. Thanks, Alan

Just a quick salute to Bill Murray - who unfortunately is not longer making marbles. Bill has a great eye for color and created some simple yet elegant and attractive designs and sold them at very fair prices. His Man in The Moon (not pictured) and mica pieces were great. Bill: If you ever decide to make marbles again - I'll be in line to buy your work!

As an aside - Mark Matthews still makes limited runs of vaseline glass Air Trap pieces. These include rectangles, fine bubbles, Jetson, spirals and a limited number of alphabet and integer sets. I'm probably forgetting others. Recently he made a group of "Comedy and Tragedy" theater mask air traps in clear - which I couldn't resist.

IMO - "Vaseline" is a term that is most popularly used by collectors of dishware to indicate the yellow color. It comes from adding uranium oxide to the batch formula. IIRC the green form comes from the addition of iron oxide to the "Vaseline" uranium oxide batch. For Akro Agate marbles - these are the predominant florescent base colors - although there are a few minority exceptions. Akro collectos have referred to the yellow florescent base as "Lemonade" for the obvious reason. The green florescent base has been popularly referred to as "Limeade". Keep in mind that there are other florescent glass colors such as "custard glass" (which is an opaque opalescent) that were not popular as glass marble cullet as the colors are not very bright. A LOT of lemonade cullet was found at the Akro site - however it tends to break into 1" pieces far more readily than other cullet colors - thus is seldom found in those big baked potato-sized cullet chunks. That has always made me speculate that lemonade/limeade base marbles will probably fracture more readily that other Akro glass formulas. There was one place by the back concrete wall that a guy tunneled under the factory slab floor (VERY dangerous) and found probably 100 lbs of lemonade cullet. In my experience limeade cullet is MUCH harder to find. The uranium oxide colorant is one of many colorants that were dangerous to humans (pre-OSHA) and the reason that the Akro site was designated a hazardous waste site.

Here is what vaseline (lemonade) and limeade glass look like in their raw state. This is Akro cullet photographed in sunlight only.

Its due to the similarity of color to a jar of Vaseline. Vaseline glass has an "other worldly" glow to it - even without the UV light. I suppose Vaseline is the closest commonly know product color to compare it to. I have some good sized vaseline cullet chunks from the Akro Agate site - they are pretty neat. I also have a large bizarre "alien green" florescent cullet from the Akro site.

I'm hoping. Its a bit of a drive for me - so I haven't been making them as regularly as I have in the past. Definitely a good show.

I agree - a Stankard is a piece that REALLY benefits from high resolution. I think they are quite difficult to truly appreciate without studying it closely in person. The Stankards have an amazing gift.

Sue: I absolutely agree. Here is the future owner of my collection passing time with Bert:

Here you go:

I was admiring some $3,000 - 4,000 pieces this year at the Wheaton Arts show. The artist noted that at that level - they were outside the marble collecting crowd and in the art glass circles.

The funny thing about contemporaries is that they are very diverse and one person's "got to have it" is another person's <yawn>. IMO many contemps can be trickier to photograph - as many have a lot of depth to them. I started collecting contemporaries after about a decade a collecting vintage (in addition to, not instead of). I found that moreso than vintage - it helps to actually to actually hold it in the hand to really appreciate the skill that went into making it. The diversity of design and execution is so broad as to almost defy description and artists are constantly coming up with radical new design concepts. Some contemporaries require huge investments in time to prepare, craft and finish them. Ask a contemporary artist how much time goes into a specific piece and you will often be amazed. Like vintage it is a "buy what you like" emphasis.

Just to add that the Wheaton Village/Arts show is possibly the best show for contemporaries.

Glass addiction is a good place to start. There are a huge number of artists not on GA though. It sort of depends whose work you prefer and want to collect. A good number of contemporary artists sell on Ebay as well. Personal preference in contemporaries vary widely - as do costs.

That would be MOST interesting.

That would be interesting if it proves to be accurate. As far as I know - the site was declared a hazardous waste site about 10 years ago due to the toxic material residues found there. The city had tried to sell the site previously but the sale was contingent upon acceptance of the cost for the HAZMAT clean-up - which at the time was estimated to be in excess of $1,000,000.

To orient everyone - the star-shaped cuts in the graphite cup were made to "catch" the streams of glass and help it to start spinng in the same direction as the cup. Otherwise the "cork" pattern would not exist. IIRC - my cups have deeper ridges. These were hand carved by the factory workers.

I haven't been out there in a few years and yes, the Clarksburg Police have it on their patrol route (city owned property now). IMO there isn't any reason to go poking around - the entire area has been picked over so much. It is said that there is an offsite location that Akro dumped a large amount of material - but for reasons I won't go into it is not physically accessible. One of my favorite Akros was found across the street under the big ball field bleachers. Who knows - the ball field may be a dump site? Ditto for a small business just down the street. The back hill probably has some small finds left - but the police presence and stealth makes it not worth the trouble. A LOT of material was taken out of the site over the years and represents an interesting cross-section of production pieces, a few TRUE experimentals, lots of end/beginning-of-run discards, cullet and other misc items.

Sharing some of that experience.... here are a few photos of the Akro Agate site several years ago: For a little orientation - the concrete slab was the factory floor. It was roughly 1+ acres in size and had a rail line at one end. The small building was the administrative office. The tower held silica and if you look at it closely - you'll see the original (tin) roofline diagonal line. The poor condition of the slab is from diggers smashing their way through looking for discarded marbles - which were found in some quantity in a drain system. Cullet, discarded marbles and broken glassware was discarded in enormous quantity on adjacent property. The entire site has been heavily dug, sifted and combed-through for quite a number of years.

Keep in mind that the number of colors in a specific marble does not have to be limited by the number of nozzles. When they changed colors they did not stop the machine and certainly didn't change the color tanks. I have several Akro machine parts and I can tell you that it is obvious that a lot of different runs were made one right after the other. Funnels etc looked like the 7 cities of Troy - with colors runs layered one on top of the other. If a piece was produced as one run was ending and another was starting - all kinds of wierd colors are possible. This is also obvious to those who have frequented the Akro plant digs. A LOT of marbles that were not the exact color that they wanted, blends and start/end of runs were discarded by the bucket. I believe that many of these pieces with more colors than usual just missed the trash bucket. Not saying they aren't attractive - its just not what the factory intended to produce.

Another small group