Give Fugly Marbles Their Due.

[Sword44]

Delbert brought up a topic that gets too little notice in the marble world in his recent post "Fugly 3/4" Shooter Id Help. Please"

I speak, of course, of Fugly marbles.

Delbert got it right; his marble is a good, almost prototypical example of a Fugly. Fuglys are characterized by poor pastel pairings and are widely collected as bad examples of nearly every manufacturer. Peltier Muddies are true Fuglys. Vitro and Jabo Fuglied up for years.

Fugly values are in inverse proportion to size. A 3/4" Fugly, for instance, is worth less than a 5/8" Fugly. A single peewee Fugly will bring more than several pounds of Fugly shooters. Prominent Fugly collectors include a small group of balding topless waitresses in Dubuque and Ed Begley Jr.

Its time to get your Fuglys out of the closet!

Anxiously awaiting the Steph's Study Hall Fugly tutorial,

Sword44

[Steph]

Baha. We'll archive your Fugly Study at the end of the semester. That'll take care of it.

[Delbert]

Now, let's broaden the classification somewhat.... does the Fugly range also include the drab colors of the recycled glass Dark Ages, long before Jabo reared its head at the end of the millenium? I have some mibs that look like they were made of a dismal blend of brown beer bottles, white cold cream jars and trashy clear vinegar bottles with lots of bubbles and chunks of floor sweepings. I've seen some of them that fall into this category sold on ebay as "slags".....;-)

[david Chamberlain]

My suspicions are that you'd all determined that my reemergence at this Board was toothless.....Not! This Fugly post has been gnawing at my craw. It has been common knowledge since time immemorial that it is really only about 1 1/2 to 2 1/2% of the marbles ever made that are worthy enough to wind up pictured in marble books and, of course, an even smaller percentage that managed to come down through the decades unscathed. Every last one of the machine-made marble manufacturers made Fugleys. So don't get so caught up in veneration of your favorite marble company; there are examples out there that would make you wonder what they were ever thinking.

I think it is undisputed that we can claim Marlow Peterson and Larry Castle as the Fathers of machine-made marble knowledge. Between them they have four landmark books on machine-made marbles to their credit. They got the ball rolling!

Cat's-eye marbles have been "Fuglies for the Ages!" Who should reverse that trend but none other than Marlow & Larry with their book specifically on cat's-eye marbles. You could hardly say that these guys don't know machine-made marbles. Well, Marlow since the mid-1990s has been outspoken about the beauty of Jabo marbles. Heck, he was after me time and time again to take a closer look at what was being accomplished in their special Spring & Fall Classic Runs going back to 1994. Of course, he already knew that he had completely seduced me in regards to cat's-eye marbles so he figured he had a likely new disciple in Jabo marbles. And he did!

O.K. there are Jabo Fuglies; what company doesn't have them. But the crass prejudice against Jabo defies imagination. I just can't imagine how anyone after reading the 4 or 5 articles I have written re. various Jabo runs can still come to the blanket conclusion that their marbles are s--t. But that is what rears it's ugly-Fugly head time and time again.

The way I look at it we're down to two marble companies that are thankfully bucking the national trend and can still say "Made in the U.S.A." They deserve all the support we can give them; they sure as heck have mine. David Chamberlain

[david Chamberlain]

Regarding Fuglies go to the Fugly thread at General Marble & Glass Chat. David