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Idle Question For An Expert


ann

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Plus -- I'm not sure how much patent-date info can be counted on to help actually solve any of the dating issues. From what I've read, machines or improvements were generally in use before the patents were granted. I imagine there could be a several-year lag between the two. But dates like that can at least serve as "coat - tree" dates, to hang other time-period or stylistic information on, and around.

Ann

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That's Champion = winner.

Not Champion = Champion Agate Co.

Like Champion Jr. not equal Champion Agate Co.

Gottcha. It's Friday. I'm particularly slow on Friday. Champion Agate wasn't even around then, was it?

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In the case of both of those patents, I'd be very surprised if they hadn't experimented with every possible variation of each for at least a year or more, by the time the patents were filed, at which time they were likely moving on to something new.

mike

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It WOULD be interesting.

I'll just throw out one last thought about the 1928 (or 1933) patent, and then leave the debate to my betters - - -

Since a patent is a legal document, and is prepared by a lawyer, the language used is always necessarily precise. Because of that (among other things) it's probably significant that the terminology used is "striating" or "striated" rather than "striping" or a related term (like "ribbon").

Have loved this thread! Does anyone have Peltier slags that are for-sure Peltier, but not the feathered type?

Have a great weekend everyone --

Ann

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in case anyone else wants to read-up, here are links the two patents mentioned above:

1927650 filed: 07-21-1928 issued: 09-19-1933 title: Method of and devise for making vitreous objects

1946879 filed: 02-02-1931 issued: 02-13-1934 title: Means for and method of making agatized bodies

i've only been able to locate two other patents for Sellers H. Peltier/Peltier Glass Company, and both concern shaping the gobs after cutting: 1865787 and 2302886 (the latter doesn't look like it's necessarily intended for marbles).

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Thank you Paula ! The first of the last two patents is a beauty, but I doubt that it was ever made.

The last one looks like a two station glass press for making small lenses, which is what the majority of their business was in the forties.

Sellers was a real marble fanatic. I have seen colored pencil sketches of several feeder system ideas from 1929 and 1930, that were probably drawn by him.

mike

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  • 2 weeks later...

But if not aliens, then I have to agree, more-or-less, with Paula (Fight! Fight!) By more-or-less, I mean that I believe that the machine in question, if made, could have produced the feathered slags. Not DID. COULD HAVE. Unfortunately, we'll probably never know, since if it was made, it has certainly gone the way of its brother, the fabled Miller machine. That the intention was to produce what we call slags (and they called onyx or agate or whatever) is right there in the wording of the patent itself, if one reads it carefully, and without expecting to see the word "slag" or "onyx" or whathaveyou. I'll cite the relevant bits for producing the striations (not stripes): PAGE 1: lines 25-30; lines 38-40; lines 46-63; lines 78-82; PAGE 3: lines 72-95;lines 118-121lines 143-148; and here and there in other places. I think it's clear that the intended marbles are slags from several places, two of which are: PAGE 1, lines 57-63: ". . . so that the clear or transparent component of the mass may cohesively pile or weld together or unite, and hold the stria in a more or less tortuous intermixed, or interlaced form or condition, which might be expresed as being held in suspension in the clear mass," and PAGE 4, lines 58-63: "Figure 7 shows a marble produced by this present invention, which has a clear glass and transparent body of any desired color or even of clear glass, and in which is located, as in suspended form, the tortuous or folded form of the stria . . ."

So there.

Or aliens. One or the other.

Ann

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I respectfully disagree with all my heart, and if I'm the only one, I'm fine with that.

I still say "couldn't neither."

A possible miller machine still does exist, and it has nothing to do with making feathered slags, either.

mike

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Mike, thank you for posting all of this. I know that you know cause I know what Boyce found in that safe. I know some documentation does still exist and I think maybe you should tell a little more. I jumped for joy when he told me about the Miller machines (10 of them) and I wished he had joined in all of those posts that belittled all of us who talked about Miller machine and said they never existed and had other explanations for how those Miller swirls got formed. I never stopped calling our marbles Miller swirls and after we met Boyce I knew we were correct. Edna

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Hi Edna,

As for the Miller machines, the documents show that Peltier bought four of them in 1924/25, and that they bought four more by 1927, that were a different model than the first four. One of these was returned for some reason. By 1931 they had 13 marble machines, some of which may have been further modified Miller machines. I believe it was the more wild of the "Miller" patterned marbles that were made with the 1928 patent set-up, not the feathered slags.

mike

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That's what i was referring to Kevin. They did exist. And I won't mention any names, but I do remember who it was. I disagreed privately. I stared at my Miller swirls for hours trying to figure out just how they were accidentally formed. But I had too many for them to be an accidental occurrence. I never stopped calling them Miller swirls and then I met Boyce Lundstrom and questioned him about the existence of the machine and he told me. Mike knows more about this than anyone other than dead people and Boyce. Edna

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The Miller machines were the grooved rollers that made the gob of glass round, they didn't influence the pattern appreciably. The 1928 patent was one of many ways of bringing the different colors of glass together that was responsible for the resulting pattern.

mike

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I know who it was also, funny thing is i remember doing the same thing, i had a few Miller Swirls, and i posted one or two and was told there was no such thing as Miller Swirls, i actually debated the same thing, that there is no way that many marbles where an accident...

All good though, glad to see some evidence surfaced, it's threads like these we should all soak in and learn from.

Thanks Mike.

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Hi Sami,

I don't think anybody said that the "Millers" and the feathered slags were constucted the same. Most of the thinking, reasonable people here contend that the feathered slags were made as per the 1928 patent, and that is what I disagree with, right or wrong.

mike

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