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My Newest Alley Addition


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I have not poked around on flea bay for a while and when I saw this the temptation got the better of me. I have plenty of the spruce type with Av and one other blue and green with aventurine but only a little. This one I was pleased to see show up with mounds of gold Aventurine! :cool-smileys-262:

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Thank you Dani and Steph. It is quite something in hand....with good light of course. It sparkles brilliantly. I have another Blue and green but it has a normal blackish aventurine and just a little compared to this. In speaking with Dani, there are colors I have yet to find. =}

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Lutz is aventurine.

And it does look like they could have been experimenting with aventurine at Alley, since aventurine "cullet" has been found there . . . Anyway, I have one where the aventurine appears both silver and gold, on different parts of the marble. Weird.

I just can't believe I missed that on ebay, Jeeperman. I'm getting old.

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Don't get me wrong, Ann, I fully agree Alley not only experimented with aventurine but used it consistently and likely purposely in some types such as the little green spruce, there are just to many of them and they seem to be very consistent, The part I do not fully understand is the gold flake/lutz. Some say he used copper and some say it was an accidental use of a couple ingredients and just the right amount of heat. I have heard it said that all the lutz marbles went to hot and burned all the sparkle out with exception of a couple pieces here and there, but I can tell you that the one I posted is surely not burnt out. Very little in it that does not sparkle heavily as you turn the marble. However trying to photograph that is near impossible being only a few of the sparkles catch the light at the correct angle to be reflective while still. When I tell some that 85%+ is reactive and not burned out in this marble they do not believe me.

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Gonna have to agree to disagree. And one of my reasoning's being is all the various types of Alley marbles with Aventurine can be found with out. Heck not even all the fantastic Pelt types were added aventurine. It happened or it didn't. Also with out exact controls it would have been very hard back in the day of Alley furnaces to add an aventurine glass and have it come out aventurine? Even the green swirls and the blue swirls have the same marble with out aventurine. Never say never but seeing the aventurine is always in association with colors known to accidentally form aventurine I think it was accidental. Doesn't really matter though, how it got there, they are some beautiful marbles for sure!! And we can not compare the aventurine glass now being used in the new runs to past aventurine IMO

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I've been doing a lot of reading over in the bead world, and in the larger glass world, and basically lutz is aventurine, a precipitate of copper, no matter how you slice it. Accidentaly discovered by I-forget-his-name-Italian in the year I-forget-exactly-but-I'll-look-it-up-again, held by him and his family as a Venetian monopoly until the middle of the 19th century or so. So for a couple hundred years, everybody who wanted some had to get it from Venice.

It occurrs so often with green and blue because copper is usually involved in both of those colors-- undoubtedly how what's-his-name ^^up there^^ discovered the process in the first place (the word aventurine comes from the Italian aventure, by chance, by accident). It is tricky to control, as Jeeperman says. But if copper is in the formula from either Alley or Jabo or Sammy's, it's aventurine. Just like it is in what many of us call "lutz" on the old handmades.

[For rock/mineral people, copper is found in association with turquoise and malachite. Makes perfect sense.]

We can argue about calling it "lutz," if anybody wants to, but there really isn't anything to argue about when it comes to the stuff itself. I'd like to just dump the term "lutz" entirely -- it's irrelevant anyhow (like "bennington") -- and simply use the color descriptor. Gold aventurine. Green aventurine. Silver aventurine. and so forth.

But that's just me. My only real gripe is that I don't have enough marbles of any description with that glittery stuff you get when you mess with copper. Of any period. I can't believe I missed that one >>>> walks away muttering >>>>

Bead with lutz . . .

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Just thought I would say that I am washing the marbles I got in a jar yesterday and it had the Christensen that is very week but in the pile of clearies was the surprise of all it was loaded with lutz will put it in a new post but how weird with the talk about Alley and lutz in the marbles maybe so I just found a lot in a clearie will be back in a new post later as I have to get my truck done . Mike

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