Wirepulls Vs Swirls - Is There A Fine Line Here?

[Speed Racer]

Hello everybody, my oh my would you just look at all the really nice marbles being shown here lately. I am almost overwhelmed. I have a question about wire pulls when they start to look more like swirls. How do you tell the difference? Thanks for your comments.

[Steph]

I think of wirepulls as primarily European. That influences me in the fuzzy areas. If it looks "close" but I can tell it's American, I probably don't feel tempted to call it a wirepull. If it looks close to what an American marble would look like but I know it's European, that biases me a little and lets me call it a wirepull anyway.

Since yours look American, I would call them "transparent swirls".

Someone could probably post an example which would test the boundaries of what I just posted but for the moment that's where I am with the term "wirepull".

European bag posted by Cees:

[Speed Racer]

Thanks Steph. I can follow the continuous swirl from head to tail inside the transparent base on most of these. This one really gets me. So all are swirls then. Cool!!

[Steph]

See, there you go making me wonder about my boundaries. Maybe someone would call that one a wirepull. The ribbon looks pretty wiry. I'll step back and listen to what others think about it.

[Ric]

I pretty much agree with Steph. When the Euros and Americans become more similar looking, I think you can most often distinguish them based on ribbon structure and colors, or known examples. I like the last one you posted. I seems like some other views might look even more Alley to me.

[Speed Racer]

Thank you both, and yes Ric, it does have a certain Alley-ness about it.

Sometimes they can also start to go in the direction of a slag. Gotta love it!!

[lstmmrbls]

Transparent swirls, with one thin stream often 2 colored stream type from Europe called wire pulls

[1Alleynut]

Some Alley and Champion transparent swirls are often called wirepulls due to there weblike interior patterns, The European/German examples, as shown in the net bag, most often found in larger sizes 7/8ths to 1in Ive purchased numerous lots from Germany and the UK, some being older than others, I should start a post on these at some point in time there are what I would call sub families to the German Types, DB.

[winnie]

I use to call all the transparant swirls that i found here in Holland Wirepulls but that was too confusing for me,so i made a difference,the clear uncolored based ones with one or 2 streams i call Wirepulls and the ones with a colored transparant base,i call transparant Euro swirl.

Here are some of the transparant Euro swirls.

[1Alleynut]

some also referred to as Spaghetti swirls with very busy interiors that actually resemble spaghetti on the interior of the marbles looping back and forth and all over the place, while others tend to be or make a tighline flame action, these are the ones that I'm always searching for, the ones with the Colored base glass, I was told from A German Dealer are older than the clear base types, dating to the late 20's through the early 30's while the clear base with the 2 color spaghetti types were made from tha late 50's into the early 60's And Vacor had produced some with a pink base glass with white ribbons, here are some of the later ones, both types are made with very soft glass, very difficult to find (wet mint) examples most all of every size have an issue of some sort, general fleas, chips, and or missing glass, I prefer the colored glass to the newer ones, some of the older two colors can get pricey, Dave B.

[1Alleynut]

Tight Flames.

[1Alleynut]

I like the Tight one's so much, I've tried to reproduce them in clay, DB.

[Steph]

That tight is super sharp. In glass and in clay.

[1Alleynut]

My thoughts exactly Steph,. the tightlines in glass are rather tough to locate DB.