Goldstone

[marblemansion]

Anybody got these?

I put up a bit of history of Goldstone on my blog tonight - thought that might be something that hasn't been kicked around for a while...

[Gracie]

I have 1. Aside from it being nifty looking I never thought it was much of anything special, am I wrong?

Rhonda

[marblemansion]

I have 1. Aside from it being nifty looking I never thought it was much of anything special, am I wrong?

Rhonda

Ya - nice to have a few in your collection - but they do sorta remind me of the "fiber optic" marbles - in a sense -- but the history of them is kinda interesting...

[Steph]

I have a red one and a purple one. Bought them on ebay.

And yeah, they do look sorta like fiber optics, don't they. I wondered if that's what mine were. My first thought was goldstone, but then I went back and forth. The seller didn't know what they were, just that they were cool, with which I totally agree.

[marblemansion]

I have a red one and a purple one. Bought them on ebay.

And yeah, they do look sorta like fiber optics, don't they. I wondered if that's what mine were. My first thought was goldstone, but then I went back and forth. The seller didn't know what they were, just that they were cool, with which I totally agree.

Goldstone will sparkle in the sunlight - because the gold platelets are floating around in the glass - fiberoptics just kinda change color as you roll them back and forth and won't sparkle.

I only have the one thats pictured above - maybe someday I will try to get some in more colors.

[MrsMopar]

Kewl marble! Great info on yer site..thanx!

:-) Felicia

[Steph]

Goshdarnit.

I thought I had the auction pix of the two I bought. If I do, I'm not sure where I put 'em.

Hmmm ... with the sparkle, they might look cool under a scanner. I oughta try that.

In the meantime, here's a pair Alan B sold with what was described as "blue goldstone" but pretty sure it's poiple.

[marblemansion]

Ya those are nice.

[Scoop]

As much as I might buy new glass marbles from Jabo or Vacor, I don't usually purchase new spheres in gem shops... They just don't appeal to me as much as glass...

But, recently, I did purchase 2 marbles very similar to the ones Steph pictures above, just because they were freaking beautiful!!!

I know that they are brand new and that there must be BUNCHES more like them.... But, I also know that there are vintage solid goldstone marbles "out there...."

I have one that I know I've had for at least 25 years.... Were they intended to be marbles when they were made, or created to be used in jewelry or decor??? I dunno.... (Mine would be too big for jewelry)

But, they did turn up on rare occasion and they were considered special....

The bulk of my older collection is "stashed" in a difficult place to get to... If the opportunity comes up any time soon, I'd love to compare the older marble to the newer ones... I wanna say that the grain of the newer ones is finer than the old... But, I can't until I compare them.

I'd like to think there is SOME way of telling the difference...

I think I can say with some certainty that there were never any vintage solid goldstone marbles (not to be confused with aventurine) in colors other than the traditional goldstone.... But then, I've been proven wrong before....

[Pinx]

Last Monday, I was given the purple "goldstone" marble that I posted here:

Purple Marbles

The coworker who gave it to me first handed me a polished agate sphere. He said that he used to really be "into" rock collecting and this was an agate sphere he rounded from his collection a while back. Then he handed me the purple goldstone. He said a rock collecting friend of his rounded this, but that it is not a natural sphere. It was rounded from a piece of very hard acrylic. I told him I had seen pictures of these in different colors, but never knew they were acrylic. He said, yeah, most people don't. Then he pulled an irregular shaped orange chunk of the acrylic out of his pocket and said this is what it looked like before being rounded.

This is the first that I've read of this thread and thought it was quite a coincidence. Thought I'd share.

[marblemansion]

Last Monday, I was given the purple "goldstone" marble that I posted here:

Purple Marbles

The coworker who gave it to me first handed me a polished agate sphere. He said that he used to really be "into" rock collecting and this was an agate sphere he rounded from his collection a while back. Then he handed me the purple goldstone. He said a rock collecting friend of his rounded this, but that it is not a natural sphere. It was rounded from a piece of very hard acrylic. I told him I had seen pictures of these in different colors, but never knew they were acrylic. He said, yeah, most people don't. Then he pulled an irregular shaped orange chunk of the acrylic out of his pocket and said this is what it looked like before being rounded.

This is the first that I've read of this thread and thought it was quite a coincidence. Thought I'd share.

not surprised to hear about glittering acrylic:

8 pounds of glittering gold -

Bowling balls are made to glitter - and they are acrylic.

I suppose if you are interested in buying true goldstone - you want to make sure its not acrylic first.

drill a hole in it? if you can drill it easily its not goldstone and thus is worthless so the hole wouldnt matter anyways.. rofl

[marblemansion]

As much as I might buy new glass marbles from Jabo or Vacor, I don't usually purchase new spheres in gem shops... They just don't appeal to me as much as glass...

But, recently, I did purchase 2 marbles very similar to the ones Steph pictures above, just because they were freaking beautiful!!!

I know that they are brand new and that there must be BUNCHES more like them.... But, I also know that there are vintage solid goldstone marbles "out there...."

I have one that I know I've had for at least 25 years.... Were they intended to be marbles when they were made, or created to be used in jewelry or decor??? I dunno.... (Mine would be too big for jewelry)

But, they did turn up on rare occasion and they were considered special....

The bulk of my older collection is "stashed" in a difficult place to get to... If the opportunity comes up any time soon, I'd love to compare the older marble to the newer ones... I wanna say that the grain of the newer ones is finer than the old... But, I can't until I compare them.

I'd like to think there is SOME way of telling the difference...

I think I can say with some certainty that there were never any vintage solid goldstone marbles (not to be confused with aventurine) in colors other than the traditional goldstone.... But then, I've been proven wrong before....

I am not positive - but the article posted on my blog tells of the Italian word "avventurina" referring to goldstone - I dont know how glass works or where the adventurine comes from - or why it sparkles - but they seem to have similar origins - and I have seen marbles made of solid adventurine.

[marblemansion]

So here is what appears to be an agate that looks like goldstone:

Ebay auction

[david Chamberlain]

Good morning,

Thought I'd weigh in on this one. Hard to credit the goldstone we know as being acrylic.

Goldstone marbles started showing up in some qty. at marble shows in the late 80s. Russell Coppel had an arrangement with Red Wilson(See Barrett's "Aggies, Immies, Shooters & Swirls" pg. 77) and was wholesaeling them left and right to marble dealers/collectors. I've had three different colors.

Fiber-optic marbles are an entirely different animal although they do have a shimmering color characteristic. Also

when placed on top of text you can read it on the top of the marble. Cool! If the cable had been twisted the text would be reversed. Also cool! I sold a few at an embarrassing high price early on before I discovered that they were exceedingly plentiful. All of youse out there that I hammered.....you have a credit. Now let's not get crazy about this.

I know who you are.

Re: Goldstone. Got an email from Mike Barton today letting me know that he's a slut for aventurine. Well, actually he said "a fool for aventurine." So, what's the difference bet. GOLDSTONE and AVENTURINE? Huh?

David Chamberlain

[Steph]

Goldstone and aventurine are sometimes used synonymously.

The mineral version of aventurine -- not sure which color(s) -- is a rare case of a stone which was named after the synthetic version it resembled.

I have a piece of green aventurine stone. It doesn't look all that much like green glass aventurine, and doesn't look at all like red goldstone.

There's lots of cool info about aventurine and/or goldstone floating around. Like oxblood, this is a category where the name might be used widely and in different disciplines, but potentially with significant differences in each discipline. Might be considered "common knowledge" in each discipline even though it's foreign to people outside the discipline.

p.s. I've had some cool "goldstone" buttons which had golden flakes in black glass. Czech.

[david Chamberlain]

Thought I'd confuse matters more.

By the way, I've some Czech buttons w/goldstone too. Then there's Czech. Bullet-mold marbles. Knowing the difference between old Czech. Bullet mold marbles and the post WWII ones takes some goings as well. I've a Four Pointer I put

together I'll dredge up and post when I find it. I've given them considerable thought.

Also Fiber-optic and Fiber Glass often get mixed up. The only person to have made Fiber Glass marbles has been Jeffrey Grey and he calls them Fiber Agates. I got him to make 15 this year. He hadn't made any for something like 4 years. It was like pulling teeth but they're incredible. I'm bringing a few of them to Amana. Anyway, there's a world of difference between fiber-optic and fiber glass when it comes to marbles.

Then there's Catalin, a bakelite substance also used for buttons in the 20s/30s. I've seen 3 or 4 different colored Catalin marbles. I'm sure they were meant to be buttons and never were drilled but I've seen enough of them to make me wonder. They have a tiger-eye shimmer to them when you shift them around. No all of them but some.

David Chamberlain

[marblemansion]

kewl - I did not realize there was so much information in the loop about "goldstone" - MUST be where the statement originated "all that glitters is not gold (stone)"

thanks for sharing - pictures would sure be even better.

nobody liked my acrylic eurethan pre drilled glittering gold bowling ball? Talk about a BIG marble!!!

[Steph]

Loved the bowling ball! really makes ya think if it doesn't hit you right on the head -- lol

[oldmarblenut]

Goldstone and aventurine are very differnt, goldstone being made of coper crystals and aventurine being made of mica.

The original Italian name for goldstone is "avventurina" or some similar word or phrase indicating its accidental discovery, hence the mineral name "aventurine" for forms of feldspar or quartz with mica inclusions that give a similar glittering appearance. The technical term for this optical phenomenon, "aventurescence", is also derived from the same source. Yet another name for goldstone is "aventurine glass", but this should be discouraged to avoid confusion with the minerals. - from wickpedia

Sometimes goldstone is called gold aventurine, I'm not sure why but some of the glass color supplyers use this term.

I've never seen a gold aventurine, however I have seen gold colored mica as well as a few colors.

There was once a debate about green aventurine happening as a chemical reaction when making the color green, the debate was over Akro's use of aventurine, there are no records indicating Akro ever used it however there are Akro's with definate sparkles in green glass, I have had many green based snakes with what appeared to be aventurine yet I have never seen any sparkles in any other Akros green glass. I speculate this was due to chemical reaction as most green glasses are made using coper and a bad mix of ingedients could have caused the coper to crystalize.

I hope this helps some understand the difference between the two.

Peace.scott

[Steph]

Goldstone and aventurine are very differnt, goldstone being made of coper crystals and aventurine being made of mica.

The eagle and tribute (last dance) runs were the first where I ever heard green mica glass called aventurine. Clarification had to be made about how the term was being used because in fact usually aventurine refers to copper-based glass. At least this is usual in the contexts I have studied.

Sounds like in your discipline -- would that be contemporary glass artistry? -- the definitions might be different. I can accept that. However, in some disciplines aventurine and goldstone are very very closely related, even synonymous.

Perhaps it is mica which makes my green aventurine stone look different from green aventurine glass. I need to look into that. I think I know where I have stored my aventurine mineral sample.

[oldmarblenut]

It was the inclusion of mica in green base glass to resemble the look of the mineral aventurine.

Goldstone or lutz does not contain mica, it is coper crystals.

I have studied glass for many years and the terms goldstone and aventurine are directed at two seperate substances.

The purple and blue goldstone spheres are simple goldstone in a purple or blue matrix.

Now to confuse it even more, Reichenbach has a color called blue aventurine, it does not contain mica, it is goldstone in blue base glass. LOL

I keep the two in seperate categories as they have major differences, the only relation being they both sparkle.

my 2 cents may be worth a nickle in the right hands.

Peace.scott

[Steph]

my 2 cents may be worth a nickle in the right hands.

Peace.scott

I do respect your knowledge.

However, I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that in the 1800's aventurine was used to denote a sparkley copper-based glass. Chemists wrote about it.

[Steph]

for example:

http://books.google.com/books?id=VPUQAAAAI...enturine+copper

Hmmm ... I should read this article. Haven't yet. Just pulled it up with a quick search on copper and aventurine, because that was faster than finding the other chemistry book where I read about it. In my quick skim of this article it sounds as if the glass was named aventurine well before the 1800's and the copper in it was discovered/rediscovered in the early 1800's. Skimming to the end, I see a "blue green" color associated with copper-based glass, contrasted to a yellow green shade of iron-based glass.

Here's another one.

http://books.google.com/books?id=tckoAAAAY...urine#PPA265,M1

This one mentions mica in the stone version and the copper in the glass version. It appears to be talking about a brownish version of the glass. Green aventurine glaze is mentioned after that though that seems to be talking about different minerals -- chromium? Fun stuff -- please note, I am a mathematician reading chemistry texts and am not pretending to understand it all. Just enough to know that copper is associated with what has been called aventurine glass of various shades.

When the stone was discovered it was named AFTER the glass. At least that is the story I learned some time ago.