StevenJustSteven

So, before I ask you guys to help and share you’re expertise I wanted to give something in return. Unfortunately all I have to offer at this time is a story of how I came to be a collector. When I was about 15, my grandpa, during the summer, showed up and handed me this large cheese crate. Or at least a cheese crate is what I was told it was. It was much larger than I expect to be the housing for a wheel of cheese. Well inside this cheese crate was slap full of these old marbles. For a time It caught my interest but not for long. He told me a few stories of the times that with a handful of marbles and would come home with his pockets full from playing in his one room school house he attended as a young southern boy in Louisiana, where I also grew up. Well the marbles kept me entertained for a little while but they eventually just ended up in the top of my closest. Fast forward to a little over a year ago. At now 34 years old and living on my own in Phoenix Arizona and with, for the first time, financial struggles that I honestly have no idea how I’m going to get through it. So I reach out to my dad, (all of my family still lives in Louisiana) and I ask him to ship me those marbles. I’m up front with him and my intentions of hoping vintage marbles carry a value and wishing for a miracle that somehow I have something of value. He agrees to send them to me. I get the marbles a few days later. During my research I quickly find out how impossible it will be to learn all there is about marbles. Or at least enough to feel confident I know what I’m telling people when I go to try and sell them. About the time that I learn enough to start selling the easy ones, I can’t. Can’t let them go, I love them. And I want more. So yeah, instead of selling my old marbles I instead decided buying them would be a much better idea. I have grown increasingly obsessed with marbles and the hunt drives me. Well I really really need to get my act together. Ha ha. But seriously, marbles. I love them. I feel like a contradiction for having to sell them but I’m at the end of my rope. I’m left with no alternative choice. I wish I knew enough about them to know which ones are the ones best to spend my time on but when I fell in love with them I loved them all. I paid attention to which ones I liked instead of which ones are worth the most. Okay, enough complaining. Here is some photos. I have numbered them for better reference. I promise to not talk so much in my next post. Thank you for you help and attention.

So I’m sure you guys have seen plenty of inquires such as this one. Well I’m hoping mine will be the one that is correct. I did a trade with someone several months back. He told me included in the marbles I will be getting is some old hand mades. I found zero handmades. But I didn’t find a bag of game marbles.. blues, yellows, greens and and.. purple ones. However there are two different shades of blue. I only ever knew of one shade of blue for MF Christensen. At least until I came across an Alan’s marble website where he speaks about two different tones of blue. Well without taking up any more of your time here is some photos I took of one of the green ones. The easiest one I could find the 9 on. Getting photos of the nine is EXTREMELY difficult. But hopefully you can see what I see.

So upon seeing this one described as red and going back and looking at it. My lighting is deceiving. It’s more of a salmon color. Actually it’s exactly a salmon color imho.

With this said, I also understand that this forum is not the place to air out personal matters or even to try and make it a market place. I respect this forum more than that and would never be disrespectful in that manner. My only intentions here is to fellowship with fellow marble collectors and find out the ID of some marbles that may or may not be valuable. All my selling endeavors I will take elsewhere, where it is more appropriate.

okay, yeah for sure I can number them or do separate posts. This is my problem I know, but i'm dealing with a financial struggle ever since covid start and it's all finally coming to a point on the 13th when my electric will be turned off to my home. I'm trying to identify some high valued marbles as I begin to regrettable start to sell my collection.

Hey everyone, just needed some help with identifying some of these. Note: some of these I have supplied more than one set of photos for the same marble.

There it is, bottom left. Perfect example. IMG_4332.mov

Hello fellow marble friends Where is your favorite place to buy marbles at online? Where is your favorite place to sell marbles online?

Okay so I have a marble here that has a typical 9 and tail pattern as you would see in M.F. And CAC slags however the white in it is transparent. What are y’all’s thoughts? Do we keep to the rules of a slag being made up of transparent colored base with opaque white swirls? I think it’s been said that all hand gathered were slags? ( I very well may be completely wrong about all hand gathered are slags though I feel pretty confident I read something similar somewhere). I find this one to be an anomaly and remain interested in hearing from those that are more experienced than I. Without further ado, here is the marble.

Tommy, I seriously thought you were referring to a mint colored slag. I was setting up to take a photo of a mint colored slag that I had that had nearly the same amount of white. Luckily I reread your message before embarrassing myself. Since I have already gotten three photos taken I’ll go ahead and include my “minty cousin” for you.

Maybe a better way to describe a marble such as this is to consider it a blended slag? I think that may be what is throwing me off. Though I am sure a marble with an opaque white base and transparent color wouldn't be considered a slag but where is the line drawn. When does a slag start to have enough white that it crosses over the line from being transparent colored base with opaque white swirls to an opaque white base with transparent swirls? As far as the comments stating if it doesn't have oxblood as its dominate feature then it isnt a brick. That is actually how I have always thought. My opinion on the matter change recently when actually on this forum I found a post speaking about a purple brick and even a green brick. I honestly thought I saw a photo of a marble similar to mine and the majority of the consensus agreed as to its identity being that of a purple brick. That is what brought about my post on facebook. Now in realty, did I see a photo of a marble same as mine and it was being called a “purple brick” or did I read about a “purple brick” which caused me to consider the marble of mine photoed above and now when thinking back of the instance where I was reading about a purple brick my memory of it puts the two instances together to form one memory? I am unsure. We all think in the form of images. If i say banana. All of you picture a banana in your head. But if someone is great at telling stories to the point that you can really picture whatever they are speaking about, whenever years down the road you are reminded of that story sometimes you can get confused and not realized that it isn't your story but rather a story that someone who is great at setting a scene told you. Reason for this is because weather its your memory or a story someone told you, you still recall it the same way, with images. And if you can think back and “see it” you will almost always say to yourself “it has to be my memory, after all I can picture it all as if it was yesterday”. Hope my late night tangent makes sense. I haven’t actually gone searching for the post I am referring to. It may be there (which I truly think it is) or it may not be there. Ultimately it would be a waste of time searching for it because it wont have any power to bring me to my ultimate goal and that is simply just to know the identity of the marble posted above. I think I will settle within myself to call it.. my cool purple blended marble. As to where it will be displayed, it'll be display as the dividing line between my slags and my bricks. Ha ha. I’m sure not many will have made it this far in this long post. My apologies for making this all about me. It’s not intentional however it was important to me to not feel walked all over as I did on facebook. Thank you for your positive affirmations. Those on facebook were less than willing to be so proactive in the way they present their opinons and beliefs. Even though all of you are far more experienced than I am you have not made me feel less than and I very much feel that and I am not left with feeling as though my time would be better served with a different hobby. I think this experience is confirming something that I have already known, that facebook groups (though good for some) is not the place for me. There is no room for healthy questioning and debating in a kind manner for the purpose of coming to a resolve or enlightenment. I am in no way condoning arguing for the sole purpose of being right. The goal has got to be finding the correct answer for what is being discussed.

Thank you everyone for your insight. I guess if everyone is saying that it’s a slag then it’s a slag. (Which mind you slag is actually my very favorite type of marble). I think they allow for a collector the most insight into the inner workings of a marble. I have hundreds of slags. With several really great examples of purple ones. It’s just none of my slags compare to this one. In fact no other marble I have a or have seen compare to this one other than the really great examples of bricks. I truly think that If I had changed the color of this one to have a red color everyone would agree it to be a brick. It has those layers that create so much depth like a brick. My thoughts are not construed from my desire at a more valuable marble I can assure everyone. I just don’t understand why im the only one that is seeing it. Like someone said, I guess it just has so much white that it stops light from passing through the transparent base. Can a marble have a base that is less volume than the swirls that fill it? Is the base determined by what makes up the marble the most in volume or does something else determine what the base is?

Chad, thank you for your comment. You find it to be transparent purple base even though when back lit there is zero light that passes through it? I do see that some of the purple is transparent but more than that I see opaque purple more than transparent purple. Thanks again for your involvement.

Okay so, without allowing my frustrations to spill over onto this forum from a Facebook group Im wanting to get an understanding of what I think to be a rather simple and straight forward identification. So pictured here is what I find to be a purple brick. I mean it looks just like a brick with all the striations and and layers like a traditional brick. Im being argued with on Facebook claiming that it's a slag. Mind you zero light will pass through this marble. It has both transparent slivers of purple, opaque swirls that are both purple and white in color. From my understanding coming from reading several books on the subject of marbles that a slag is easily identifiable as being transparent base glass with opaque white swirls. What do you all think ? Im guessing here but this marble is roughly 21/32 to 41/64

My first post. Slags are my favorite! Check out the purple slag. By far my favorite.