wvrons

My routine has not let me clean about six or eight five gallon buckets of dirty marbles. Some from two to ten years ago. Routine is two marble chat boards daily, phone daily, emails daily, farm work daily, eat daily, sleep a little daily. If I have time to sort marbles, they usually belong to someone else.

That would have went in the throw away pile.

Newer even has bar code. Value maybe $5.00 for some. But not to many collectors.

I always go a few days early for in room but almost always stay for the actual show. Like Al said, on show day I check all that I have not seen the previous days. But the in room is my favorite and always has been. More time to search, more time to talk, learn and get to know people from every where. Many are long time good friends. Every part, every minute at a marble show is good. Nothing will ever compare to having them in hand. If you try ? You can learn more at one marble show than a year with a marble book. Take a very good light, ask questions, open ears and have a back brace. Cash helps and never have enough.

I am not so sure about that ???????? No pictures of me until I get my three upper front teeth implants done. I did shave the beard and got a haircut yesterday. If I might have looked like the above. Notice I did not say, might look like you, LOL !!!!

I have never seen any like those three.

I sold my mint original box set of 100 count Akro Sparklers. 100 in a original box is a nice site to see.

Gotta getem all ! But we never did any where. Anyone who has dug any amount knows that is almost impossible. There are always marbles left behind. Many things prevent getting every one. Time, weather, concrete, critters, equipment, distance to location, injury, daylight, water, mud, and more. But we got our share and some times more for others. NONE were ever free. None were easily found. None were easy digging.

Cairo WV = care o

Vitro = V I TR O no E. VIT RO At least that is the way two plant managers and every employee I talked with said it. JABO JA=Joann Agrbrite , Bo = Jack Bogard JA BO no H, no jaw. Jaybow.

Fenton made a big variety of glass. Made art glass for over 100 years. I worked there for a short while. Was to hot for me even in the winter. They made hundreds of colors, opaque, translucent and colored transparent, uv glass, hand painted glass, and thousands of different pieces. About every if not all marble companies in WV and Jabo used Fenton glass cullet in making their marbles. Vitrolite glass, Wissmach glass and Fenton glass were a couple of the large cullet suppliers for making marbles. It came from Gabbert family glass cullet company in Williamstown WV to the marble makers. The glass industry was big and spread all over WV years ago. The glass industry was third right behind coal and timber. In the 1930's to the 1980's every little or big town in WV had some type of glass factory. Like marbles that industry left the USA.

I do learn every week. Maybe not all here, I visit other places with marbles and marble people. I identified some marbles in hand yesterday and probably more in hand this evening. I need to spend more time with all the past marble books. Plus all my years ago notes and paper work from my searching. That is not easy sometimes as so many of those people are no longer with us. No doubt they said, oh no, here he comes again with more marble questions. I wanted my own answers that satisfied me. Answers from as close to the true source as I could find. First hand answers not third or fourth when things get scrambled as it is passed along. Then I discovered that many marble thoughts were totally wrong, just guesses or selling tactics. As years went by more and more puzzle pieces fit together. Of course I never got all my answers. The search continues for information and the marbles which go with it. Neither one will often come looking for us. We have to do the search. I will share what ever I can to help anyone searching. But they need do their searching and learn from it. I will never forget how difficult it was twenty five years ago. The more people who learn more about marbles just advances everything about marbles and we all gain. I can tell when people like the information that I post and the many talks at shows. Many times it can get long. But many times it should be even longer and with more details. It has been worth the effort and time, all these past years. Thanks

Thanks for adding the pictures buddy. I never get tired of seeing them.

The Pennsboro WV Alley dig was my dream of a lifetime. Not enough words can describe it. You had to be there. It would have been nice to had time and been able to document more of what happened. But that just was not possible. Once we found the mother load, we had to stay with it. We could not leave it for other people to find. We divided up and worked twelve hour shifts, twenty four hours a day for four days and three nights. Nola and myself worked at the hole from 7am until 7pm. Bill McCaleb and Griff worked from 7pm until 7am. When our shifts were over we had to eat, over a hour drive home, clean up, sleep, and do it again the next day. We got exhausted as the days and nights went on and tempers got short. Glad it happened then and not now. I could not physically do it now. Lots of days there was not room for another bucket of Alley marbles or cullet in the back of my pickup truck. If only we could have had more time ? But we saved many thousands of 1930's Alley marbles. Now the site is filled over and much of it covered with limestone. Before

No problem here. That is why we are here to help and to learn. We all have more to learn. After 25+ years I learn something new about marbles every week.

Many machine made marble companies made industrial marbles. Many made as many industrial marbles as play marbles. The industrial marbles always kept Jabo and Marble King in business the last many years. There were and are thousands of uses for industrial marbles. Even to roll caskets on. Fracture natural gas wells, industrial valves, fiberglass and a long long list. The most important thing with industrial marbles is usually the size needs to be accurate. Most are clear or thin transparent blue or green colored marbles. Thus the often seen transparent green 7/8 marbles with all the deep roll marks, fiberglass marbles.. The roll marks makes no difference because they would be melted into stands of fiberglass. Made into marbles was just a good way to store the glass until it was needed to make fiberglass. Some of the large fiberglass companies had their own marble machines. Johns Manville fiberglass factory in Vienna WV had their own marble machines.

I am not sure the transparent blue base and white is Vitro. It is not a Vitro from Vienna. The Vienna WV location is north of Parkersburg WV, It is where Vitro Agate was born and the first Vitro Agate marbles produced. Named Vitro from the Vitrolite Glass Company Vienna WV. Art Fisher worked as a engineer for Vitrolite. There were problems, and he knew Vitrolite was dumping their scrap glass over the Ohio river bank. So Art left Vitrolite, went next door and formed Vitro Agate Marble Co. He bought scrap Vitrolite glass and made marbles from it. He used the Vitrolite cullet for the patch and ribbon colors. Now you also know where the name Tri lIte came from. Vitrolite- half = Vitro. Vitrolite- half =Lite. A Vitro with clear and three colors = Tri Lite. The Tri Lite marbles are early Vitro marbles, some of the best glass Vitro used in making marbles. A few years later Vitro Agate moved to Parkersburg WV along the Little Kanawaha river. Every marble company in WV, some in OH and St.Louis used Vitrolite glass for striping colors on their marbles. Vitrolite was sheet plate glass. Most was used like tiles, for kitchens, bathrooms, inside or outside wall coverings, medical and dental counter tops, art deco, signs, murals, a long long list for Vitrolite glass. Lots of history on Vitrolite Glass if you do a search. Some of the actual names for marble companies and the marbles have reasons. My daughter now lives in Vienna WV near where the original Vitrolite Glass and Vitro Agate factories were located. Vitrolite Vitrolite glass army tank bullet proof view window. Many many layers of Vitrolite clear glass sandwiched together in a brass housing.

Chads picture is what most collectors I know consider a Akro liberty. Gina's is a Akro corkscrew. Probably translucent base and has wrong color blue and red for Akro Liberty. If you stretch what the base is, stretch both colors, It is still not a Akro liberty for me. Maybe some people can stretch any kind of white, red and blue Akro into a Akro liberty, but not for me. Gina's cork has nothing, not one matching color that Chad's picture has. Opaque white is much different for me than translucent white. Even if the base matched the red and blue are wrong for Akro Liberty.

I have no idea what a breaker marble is ? It is for sure not Christensen Agate at Cambridge OH. It is a common Akro patch.

Is it Jim Davis or Andy Davis spinning top ? More likely Andy Davis in OH. Andy made thousands of them. I supplied the glass from several Jabo investor runs. Andy made the tops and we split them. I gave big numbers of them away to kids free. I gave one away at the recent Pigeon Forge TN show. I think Marlow Peterson made a special poster with many of Andy's different Jabo spinning tops. Andy also made some tops from vintage machine made companies marbles and cullet. I have some spinning tops that Andy made from the special Alox marble machine run at Jabo. I think Andy, Nancy Frier and myself had all those to begin with.

How many different Jabo marbles ? No one knows that, it is impossible. 10,000-100,000 likely more. You could have 100 or 200 very different ones in a 12 hour run. Making a million per week over many years. The numbers can be high. Like how many color combinations of Akro corkscrews are there ? No one can answer that accurate.

Correct #2 is Vitro Exotic Conqueror. I think the bottom center blue base/red is CAC.

Popeye requires a clear base.

I could not tell from the first single big picture. But the top half of the grouped pictures look CAC.

Jabo or Champion.