Alley With Gold Lutz

[ann]

JimLin, yours sounds like it fits in the type I'm talking about. I know of about 14 or 15 Alley "lutzes" that are variations on a green (from a light moss green through a "standard" green to light olive) and/OR blue color scheme. I had two (green) myself, but gave away my best one. Hey, maybe a good reason to be nice to the old coot. Ahh, don't bother. I'm only nice once a year or so.

Anyway.

So if a red one has turned up now I'd wonder if it were accidental or not. Alley DID experiment.

[JimLin]

Hi Ann, Here are 5 different views of the marble I am talking about in post #25 Is this one of the types and coloring you are talking about. Jim

[ziggyzora]

An old lutz went cheap on Ebay today 280518074326, gutted, got home late, not Alley though.

[Steph]

Oooph! I'd take 'em for that! Here's that link.

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=280518074326

[lstmmrbls]

Actually it appears the old marbles we call Lutz may have been sold as spangles

[wvrons]

Most of what i have seen were also a green and some other color,usually blue. I knew that there were more out there,and i am sure there is a lot more that we have not seen yet. But now after this post maybe we will. Maybe we should call it gold aventurine,if lutz is for old handmades only.

[ann]

Hi Ann, Here are 5 different views of the marble I am talking about in post #25 Is this one of the types and coloring you are talking about. Jim

Nope!

But nice. The distribution of whatever-you-want-to-call-it looks similar to the one pictured in this thread, though . . .

[ann]

. . . Maybe we should call it gold aventurine,if lutz is for old handmades only.

I don't think it is. If it is, its a very new rule. Very, very new.

I believe that calling something "lutz" in marble-collector terms is usually meant to indicate the appearance, or look of a substance rather than the method or materials of its manufacture. If I say a transparent banded lutz, or an onionskin with lutz, most of you know what I mean. It has a quite different appearance from what is usually called aventurine of the same period (even though they both may be aventurine, produced in a very similar fashion, accidentally or not). When I see exactly the same sparkly-gold-lutz-effect on an Alley (and there ARE some, just not the one pictured) or -- gasp -- a Jabo, it's lutz, appearance-wise. If you want to drop the use of the word lutz altogether, fine. There may be valid reasons to do so, although it would eliminate a useful term from our marble vocabulary. But you'd need to drop it across the board. No Alley lutz, no onionskin lutz. Just banded transparents with gold aventurine.

[romanoak]

As I recall 15 years ago or so those were the kinds of "West Virginia" marbles that people were paying for either referring to them as metallics which encompassed a whole range of colors that were likely impuritys or aventurine swirls. Bill

[ann]

Maybe -- but I think the WV swirls usually referred to as metallics had threads or stripes of something that looked very much like silver or shiny lead -- some gray metallic-looking material. . . Something like the Jabo "lawn chair" marbles.

I don't think anyone would automatically say "metallic" at a first glance at one of the Alley lutzes. More like . . . "hey, is that something sparkly there?" . . .

[lstmmrbls]

The stuff was always called aventurine in machine mades until the new Jabo runs.

[Ric]

I think Galen and Bill are right, in that people did not refer to aventurine, regardless of it's color, as lutz on machine made marbles until after they started adding it to some of the JABO private runs.

However, it is notable that people still refer to "blue aventurine" or "green aventurine" even on the new JABOs, and that the "lutz" term is used to refer only to the thicker golder aventurine that is displayed on those marbles, likely since it is reminiscent of the gold "lutz" on some hand made marbles.

Since I'm not that much of a purist when it comes to terminology, it doesn't really bother me - I know what people are talking about. And honestly, have you ever seen the amount or type of gold "lutz" that appears on some of the new JABOs on any vintage machine made marble? If so, I sure would like to see some pictures, because those would certainly be some sweet mibs!

All IMHO and FWIW.

[romanoak]

Ann,

Just pointing out how collecting has grown. Very few collectors were looking for specific companies other than the "big four" at that time. Maybe because so little info available identifying specific companies, but collectors were always looking for the different or unusual and aventurine in an otherwise unidentifiable "West Vitginia" marble was valued and metalics were recognized as different and I've seen them as you mentioned looking like silver or pewter and many bronze colored ones. I've also seen aventurine so heavy that it looks like the metallics you mentioned until you get light on it. I've never seen the jabo to compare to but it doesn't seem far fetched that any impurity intentionally added or not could cause the effects seen. If call it aventurine or lutz or glittery stuff doesn't make much difference because I think most of us get the idea of what it looks like and would have added it to our stash if we had found it.

Bill

[ann]

Absolutely, Bill!

[ann]

I think Galen and Bill are right, in that people did not refer to aventurine, regardless of it's color, as lutz on machine made marbles until after they started adding it to some of the JABO private runs.

That's true, but the reason people started refering to it as "lutz" on those Jabos was because what antique marble collectors called "lutz" had not been seen on a machine-made marble before. That's all. As you pointed out, in the experimental Jabo runs, green aventurine was called green aventurine, blue aventurine was called blue aventurine, and mica was called mica. When lutz appeared -- as they hoped it would -- people said OMG, lutz! Period.

It was believed to be the first time lutz had appeared on a machine made until a well-known and well-respected collector said, "Not really, I have some Alleys with lutz." And by golly he did. Marbles and pictures were shown around, and a small group of people started combing back through their Alleys and keeping an eye out for it. And a few more Alleys with lutz have since turned up.

That's all there is to it. Say lutz, and people know what you mean, as you say. It's just a convenience word. Others can argue about how that thing called lutz was produced, and when, and where, until the cows come home, but it doesn't make any difference.

No need to cast it in the light of the World-Wide Jabo Conspiracy some folks here seem to believe in . . .

[Steph]

She's obviously one of them.

[lstmmrbls]

They are out there(LOL)

[ann]

ha ha ha ha hee hee hee hee we are legion ha ha ha ha . . .