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Cac & Akro Moonie Definitions And Pictures


chucks_mibs

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MOONIE: A semi-translucent, opalescent white or pale light blue hand-gathered, machine-made marble, with an interesting soft luster. Manufactured by The Akro Agate Company and The Christensen Agate Company.

Above you will find the Akron Glossary of marble Terminology's definition of a Moonie and after doing some research, I understand Akro made two types of Moonies....the first one I'll talk about is the Flintie:

The name given by Akro was "Flinties" which came in several colors...Red, Green, Blue, Red, White and Yellow.....However Its been my understanding that it was collectors that gave the name "Flint Moonie" for the white one .....When these marbles are held to backlighting, they will produce an orange glow....Most Flinties have a small transparent opening in the marble called a "fisheye"..

I have only had a handfull of handgathered Moonies where there is a noticeable nine and tail .....The confusion lies in whether they were Akro or CAC .......

Other Moonies claimed to have been made by Akro are extremely opalescent almost like looking at a real opal...most of the time the orange glow on those samples are very apparent without applying any backlighting. I found the majority of these type bubble free and even though some may have noticeable internal action many don’t have any "hand gathered swirling features" whatsoever.....

This should get the discussion going pretty good here.....I will kick back for a little while to see what kind of response this gets from other board members....Im very curious what you all think...here are some relevant questions to consider.......

-With the exception of the Flint Moonie (White w/fisheye), were both Akro and CAC Moonies supposed to be hand gathered?

-Was the name "Flint Moonie" created by the company or collectors?

-Does any timeline supporting documentation exist for Akro Moonie production?

-Can someone please post detailed pictures of either a CAC or an Akro Agate hand gathered Moonie? ...if you have both, comparison pics please....

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well heck, we'll get the discussion moving..

there is a big difference between a flintie and flint moonie.

1. flint moonie was a company name. we sold a # 0 'flint moonie' box set to Roger about 15 years back. Only box he has of one in that size.

2. flinties were the red colored ones. Commonly seen with the eyes(although we have a few with '9's) the flint moonies, are not colored.

3. the yellow, green and blue ones were called opals, by akro, again a company name, sold as such.

4. there's also a 'fire opal' named by Roger. thats kind of an orange-y color. and it truly looks like it's on fire!

(there's a picture of a box set of #3 moonies, that will be in our newsletter this month).

5. looking at all our flinties and opals,and moonies, only a very few are hand gathered. however there may be more out there, as they were made around the time of the slags and brick types.

as for the difference between the cac and akros? in hand you can tell the difference. glass is a little diffrent as is the patterning. although hard to see!

Roger shows the box sets in his books.:-)

the main diffrence between a flint moonie and just a moonie? as you said, when a light is cast through the moonie it shows an orange dot. when you do the same thing to a flint moonie it shows a red dot!

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hi, fire opal looks fiery orange in color in hand.... i would say the one on left is just a moonie. the one on right... is it accidental swirling or definite hand gathered characteristics? hard to tell in picture. I would say it is Akro not Cac. oddly enough the cac's have (usually) a very slight blue cast to them. does this one? I think this is where the CAC collectors need to jump in.

either way, as said, hard to tell, especially not having in hand. I will try to post a pic. of a fire opal later. :-) when you shine a light thru them onto white paper, what color is the dot? orange or a cherry red?

I think where there could be more confusion is the 'eye' thing. we have chinese checker marbles that all have' eyes', and they are not opals or moonies. it was the nature of the machine to make the eyes. just because an akro has that dang 'eye' doesn't make it a flintie or a moonie or an opal. lol

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Shown here with a piece of opalescent cullet and other marbles to get the true colors....The marble exibits blue and orange without any light being applied

moonie3001.jpg

contrast with other marbles with white in them to compare

moonie3002.jpg

The marble had been stored high up on a shelf for awhile and was quiet dusty and dirty (helps to see the contour and shape so i didnt clean it) here is a detail.....This sample I believe to be hand gathered as I see an actual tail (very hard to photograph)

moonie3003.jpg

moonie3004.jpgmoonie3005.jpgmoonie3006.jpg

moonie3007.jpgmoonie3008.jpgmoonie3009.jpg

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