honeybern Posted July 9, 2011 Report Share Posted July 9, 2011 http://cgi.ebay.com/...E:X:AAQ:US:1123 ...do I hear $30? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BobBlock Posted July 9, 2011 Report Share Posted July 9, 2011 Ruler not included! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hipocritter Posted July 9, 2011 Report Share Posted July 9, 2011 BobBlock said:Ruler not included! Dang! The only thing I would want is the ruler! Hi Bob! . Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mmuehlba Posted July 11, 2011 Report Share Posted July 11, 2011 well here some are that need work !! what are these call for real I forgot ?/ they are heavy . Mike Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
honeybern Posted July 16, 2011 Author Report Share Posted July 16, 2011 well here some are that need work !! what are these call for real I forgot ?/ they are heavy . Mike Marbles? Unusually spherical field stones? One of those, fer sure! I can't decide. Edit: I guess I could haul out Baumann's Collecting Antique Marbles or Gartley and Carskadden's Colonial Period and Early 19th Century Children's Toy Marbles but Lawdy I ain' gots de strenth!! Ballast? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ann Posted July 19, 2011 Report Share Posted July 19, 2011 Mill balls. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Steph Posted July 19, 2011 Report Share Posted July 19, 2011 Mill balls. On Mike's? I would have guessed real stone on his. Mighta said "limestone" but I'm not that confident at minerals. Maybe just whatever chips were knocked off of whatever other stones Germans worked with. .... would have been my guess. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ann Posted July 19, 2011 Report Share Posted July 19, 2011 On Mike's? Naw, was thinking of the first ones . . . "Atlanta-type" mibs. Mike's . . . look like real stone to me too. Ballast might be a good guess. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
honeybern Posted July 20, 2011 Author Report Share Posted July 20, 2011 ...Mike's . . . look like real stone to me too. Ballast might be a good guess. I was kidding? Could be stone age marbles! Yeah, that's the ticket! The first mibs made by early man fashioned after the ones they observed being made by dung beetles. But, unlike the dung beetle's, the man mades were fashioned as components of various games of liesure and not the tasty, in-between-meal-snacks that the bipedal, hunter-gatherers informally referred to as "oop ips" which roughly translates to beetle balls. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ann Posted July 20, 2011 Report Share Posted July 20, 2011 Not sure what you were kidding about. Ballast? Ships used stones (this size and up) for ballast for a long, long time. Smallish stones were preferred because it made it easier to secure the casks and crates of cargo and supplies (partially burying them in the ballast). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
honeybern Posted July 24, 2011 Author Report Share Posted July 24, 2011 Not sure what you were kidding about. Ballast? Ships used stones (this size and up) for ballast for a long, long time. Smallish stones were preferred because it made it easier to secure the casks and crates of cargo and supplies (partially burying them in the ballast). Uh, huh, would have been kind a hard to kid about ballast, not knowing what it was. "Kidding" cuz they probably didn't tumble or otherwise fashion ballast into perfect spheres which would render them impractical, besides the fact that they probably didn't have tumblers unless there were water or air powered ones. Or powered by slaves or like the Flintstones with pet dinosaurs n stuff. But I don't think we saw any dinosaur powered machines at the Creation Museum, come to think of it, which seems odd, considering how easy it was to saddle dinosaurs and ride them around when they weren't being eaten by them, that is. <br><br><br><br><br>Edit: perhaps dinosaurs, due to the lack of good dentists, developed a very regular diet so as not to jeopardize their teeth through the additional wear and tear from in-between-meal noshing and the additional plague build up, etc. After all a dinosaur's teeth were very important to them since they didn't have, nor do they have to this day, opposing thumbs. People could have observed the dinosaurs dining schedule, and shared the information until everyone knew when it was safe to saddle up a T-Rex, for instance, and ride it around.<br> Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lstmmrbls Posted July 24, 2011 Report Share Posted July 24, 2011 I believe finding marbles at some shipwreck sites lead to the story about marbles as ballast. There are a few things that do not add up. First is, it would have taken multiple millions to make up the weight needed as most marbles shipped would have been clay. And the area used would have been way too great. The weight to volume ratio would have also been very poor for ballast. I guess if they were stored low in the holds they might have been considered ballast(along with all other items in that part of the holds. Also most ships used to transport marbles were not using free ballast. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ann Posted July 25, 2011 Report Share Posted July 25, 2011 Wasn't talking about marbles as ballast. Round stones as ballast. 1700s into the early 1800s. Don't know about before. Sorry, not making it up or fantasizing about it. I'm sure you wish I was. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lstmmrbls Posted July 25, 2011 Report Share Posted July 25, 2011 They did use stones in early sailing ships, absolutely! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Steph Posted August 1, 2011 Report Share Posted August 1, 2011 The more I read the more convinced I am that "ballast" came to mean something along the lines of "economy shipping" in addition to its original functional meaning. If a manufacturer/distributor wasn't in a rush then they could get their materials on the ship as space came available. Ships charged money to take goods at a ballast rate. Seems like ships should PAY for ballast instead of CHARGE for ballast if it was just about functionality. But then somewhere along the way people figured out that they could save shipping charges by calling their goods "ballast", and then somewhere else along the way the people running the boats figured out that they didn't need to pay for "ballast". They could actually charge for taking it on board. 1914 book: ".... For the liner, if carrying such goods at all, is carrying them as ballast rather than as cargo, and accepts as a rule a low freight for the service." http://books.google.com/books?id=nn8pAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA191 That's just one example. Won't bog this down with links. I think I remember an 1800's reference to marbles being used as ballast. You may have seen it also and discounted it as an "urban myth" of the day. But the myths are starting to pile up ... seems to me. I can totally see barrels of marbles being treated as low value, low urgency freight and going the economy route. This next article is fairly specific about who is shipping what for how much in connection with marbles from Japan in 1955. Not quite as specific as I'd hope for further google searching. But rather specific nonetheless: "Conference United States Flag Lines advises that Japanese toy glass marbles are loaded as ballast and the cost of shipping from Japan to the United States is only $10.00 per 2000 pounds. Shipping costs on non-conference United States Flag vessels and Japanese Flag vessels are considerably lower." http://i119.photobucket.com/albums/o151/modularforms/History/1955_02_17_StMarysOracle_p4_Ballast_ConferenceFlagLines.jpg Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Create an account or sign in to comment
You need to be a member in order to leave a comment
Create an account
Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!
Register a new accountSign in
Already have an account? Sign in here.
Sign In Now