wvrons

Yes Fenton made true opaque black. Dave at Jabo tried many times for me to make true black. He never could do it. Akro, CAC and Peltier had true black in marbles. A very few Alleys have true black. But as you see it is older companies before 1940's that they had true black. Before the use of cullet. True black Akroware pieces are expensive and hard to find. Akro had some nice large dishware which was gray and swirled with true black. They are on the high side of prices in Akroware. I bought two pieces a few years back, at the same place, and have never found any more for sale. A black Akro candlestick holder is high priced. A set of two is real high. Smith glass made some true black small glass animals like the Alley animals.. I think Smith got some of the original Alley animal molds.

All Alley.

Some old Alley Sistersville location marbles have the exact same color combination. Many Alley Sistersville marbles are 11/16 or little larger size.

Size matters in marbles for sure.

You will learn from it. Just keep it handy and look often. How do you price education ? Larry Alley took all the pictures. He is good at taking marble pictures. I watched him take thousands of them. A lot of them in my house. He stayed with me for ten days straight for one visit.

Champion never made any over 3/4 inch. The one above has some drizzle.

Rare to find any of those above in the wild. People still studying them and holding onto them. Maybe another 10 or more years, they will be for sale used.

He also has a red one, and a black one, a little different cover blue one, all which all have most of the same exact pictures. I think the one above may have been his last one ? Each one was finding a cheaper printing price.

Most decorative glass can be industrial marbles. Jabo and Marble Kings largest production were industrial marbles. The toy marbles were made from some of the same glass. The blue in your marbles above is the base glass. Which is Jabo industrial glass and clear with the Burmese glass added to the industrial base glass. Most of the industrial glass marbles will be blue, next is green, next is dark looking black which is a mix of different colors but it is not opaque black. These may be more purple, brown green or amber, looking black. The Fenton Burmese glass cost to much for use as base glass. Clear or white is always the cheapest base glass. The clear is harder to control as a base glass. I have seen dump trucks dumped of empty whisky bottles. Used for clear base or striping in marbles. A trick is to add some clear in with most striping colors. It will enhance and brighten the marbles. If it does not thin the colors to much ? The correct amounts can be a problem.

I am biased but no getting around it American Machine Made Marbles, large blue paper back. It is the most up to date and through detailed history of all the machine made companies. It also has many pictures. But not just a book of named marbles pictures. Do not buy the book Popular American Marbles by the same authors as American Machine Made Marbles. It is a cheaper marble picture book. The pictures are bad and not worth the money. Some of the Alley picture books are repeats of the same exact pictures in other Alley picture books. These are mainly just pictures of Alley marbles. The detailed L.E. Alley history is in the first book done by Larry Alley. It is a large green paperback .

Brown Zebra. Peltier Zebra's do not have to contain aventurine, some do and some do not. It is brown glass not black. Most marbles that look black will be dark purple, dark brown, dark green, or even dark amber. A very few old marble companies had true opaque black glass. It is almost impossible to make true black glass with cullet.

100% Alleys.

No one has ever dug a Alley marble at Paden City. Mike Johnson was allowed to pick up four or five from the lawn of the current house that sites on the exact site. Mike donated those to the Paden City library for display. I stopped a few years later and looked for them. I ask about them and they had no idea what I was talking about. They had no marbles. Yes Wissmach was in operation in the 1920's and still is today. I think todays Marble King is at the old Paden City Glass and or American Glass Co. They moved to Paden City after the fire at the St. Marys WV location. Which they bought from L.E. Alley. The cullet shortage was from different reasons. Every even small towns in WV had some type of glass factory. Those workers left the glass factories and went to war. Like Vitrolite some were able to switch over and make glass for the war items. Vitrolite made laminated glass(inches thick)which was bullet proof for the army tank driver and gunner view ports. Plus other glass war items. Sevaral of the WV glass factories closed down. So there was less scrap. Then the men came home from the war and several small marble factories went into business in a two or three year period. Then there was not enough cullet to supply all the marble factories in WV. Just when toy marbles was hitting their peak sales. To many marble factories for the scrap glass supply. This is the same time frame when to many marble companies started up. Then the older companies had to switch to cullet rather than batch glass, due to so much competition. The cullet supply was deleted fast. WV glass companies have been closing steady for fifty years. Not many left today. One of the older ones remaining today is Blenko. Some members here also collect Blenko glass. Notice : I will give out some info. Blenko Glass in WV may someday make marbles. Not long ago(weeks)I know they bought a marble machine. That machine made marbles at Jabo for years. It belongs to Blenko Glass now. Maybe they will only be industrial marbles ? But that market is very slow now. So maybe it will be toy marbles ? Maybe fiberglass ? Who knows as of today. Maybe machine made marbles will keep being made in the US ????

I thought we done this one twice recently.

I thought we already said CAC.

Get a bigger box.

When you see a US made swirl and see 9/16. The first thought is eliminate Ravenswood or not. Ravenswood made more 9/16 swirls than any other company. Then if it is not a Ravenswood go to the other companies. At 9/.16 size, US swirl unless it is obviously not a Ravenswood, then a good chance it is. The extra little line of color out away from the main color is also a good Ravenswood trait. Many times this little thin line will be blue color. The vast majority of Ravenswoods color striping are transparent. The color combo is very close or same as some Alleys. But Ravenswood made far more 9/16 size than Alley did at any of his locations. The pattern does not flame, it does not have the fish hooks, small turkeys, etc. all more Alley traits. It was fast down to a older Alley or Ravenswood. One has to be eliminated. Plus I have dug a few at Ravenswood that match the one above.

Is it Peltier or Sistersville Alley ?

Several of the investor runs at Jabo has the Fenton white glass. Jabo through the years used about every color glass cullet that Fenton made. About, if not all WV marble companies used Fenton cullet in making marbles. I have found Fenton and Vitrolite glass at probably every marble site that I have dug in WV. Alley made marbles in Paden City during 1930, long before MK was a company. But in 1930 Alley may have been, making marbles with raw batch glass ? There are almost no known examples of what Alley made at Paden City. The Alley factory was located right next door, very close to the Wissmach Glass factory, still in business. They make stained glass. It was used for the Champion furnace marbles. I have never heard or know of any Paden City Glass being used for making marbles. But possible if the glass coefficency was near what their marbles glass would have been. If it was nearby and they could use it to make marbles they did. Right after WWII cullet or scrap glass was hard to get. Then Edwin Safreed took a dump truck for Ravenswood Novelty to IN for cullet. Not a easy trip then on two lane crooked roads.

Colors are close. But red and brown are different. The pattern is totally different. No red color bleed in Blocks auction one.

The size and pattern were my clues.

Nice set. Now you need to complete the Suoerman row. Then a row of Green Lanterns, a row of Blue Galaxies and a row of Silver Surfers.

Yes

If CAC it is much better than a Superman or Superboy or Spiderman. If it is a true CAC pee wee, it is even more rare. If a true pee wee ? I now wonder if it is a messed up ground and polished cork ?

Yes they were making Carnival glass when I was there. The Burmese was used for many different pieces, different size flower vases, baskets, table lamps, animal figures, plates, and more. Fenton made all of their own glass from raw batch. A few times Jabo ordered a special white glass be made by Fenton and then was sold to Jabo for marbles. MK did it once but Jabo did special ordered glass from Fenton several times. MK made the marbles from Fenton glass and the Fenton Glass name was on the bag header. So many buyers thought Fenton Glass made marbles. Fenton Glass never ever made any marbles.