Road Dog Posted December 22, 2014 Report Share Posted December 22, 2014 I have a couple 1" reds. Here are a pic of some 9's . The one at the back is 13/16" and has a Shear mark. Think it's early Handgathered Akro. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BuckEye Posted December 22, 2014 Report Share Posted December 22, 2014 Thanks and I guess I do! So, would you agree that any "9" 7/8" and under, minus all red and colors known to be only CAC, is a crap shoot as to origin? I wish your detailed post would have been 2nd! lol...... Thanks Craig No, you can definitely tell MFC cut marks apart from most other manufacturers if you really look at them. Pelt Cerise HG slags are more of an orange red IMHO. Messy nines I put with Akro. Crisp non red nines I put mfc or CAC. Then look at the cut to differentiate. I'll have to come back over and show you one day. Cac HG slags are their early colors and won't look like mfc. I have a crazy 7/8" HG electric green which is one of my favorites. No chance it's mfc despite the size Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mon Posted December 22, 2014 Author Report Share Posted December 22, 2014 Wow RD, by the sounds of it, those are VHTF in that size! I really like the one on the right! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mon Posted December 27, 2014 Author Report Share Posted December 27, 2014 Read most of Mr. Cohill's book and have yet to find where he states "no red" marbles. In 1901-02 Mr. Christensen hired Mr. Leighton and by 1903 he was in full production. He states that MF did extensive experimentation with a handful of formulas purchased from Leighton and others. "He made many attempts at different and new marbles"! Also, states Mr Leighton had a working palette of 22 colors based on glass chards uncovered at 3 of his eight marble works. Was red not of these 22 colors? As far as records, this is what he states: First good records for a full year are for 1907 However, records kept from their date of incorporation in 1910, and beyond, are perfect and complete. The company records before 1905 are spotty. This is the etched in stone data............................ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lstmmrbls Posted December 28, 2014 Report Share Posted December 28, 2014 No statement of no red marbles, just no cullet, discarded marbles, names, packaging or any records at all, of transparent red glass marbles. As for Leighton,I know of no red, melted pontil, marbles. Lots of purples but no red. Maybe someone has some? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Steph Posted December 28, 2014 Report Share Posted December 28, 2014 The Leighton family was in possession of a ruby red glass recipe. But I don't believe MFC used it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mon Posted December 28, 2014 Author Report Share Posted December 28, 2014 Did they make yellow? Any cullet, discarded marbles, names, packaging or any records an all? Can this same statement be made about Akros that were found much later by digging up the whole country side 10 to 20 feet down? It's a great book and to think MF Christensen didn't at least dabble with red is a mystery to me. He studied colors and exotic names with the intent to bring girls into marble. In 1904 he was producing 10,000 marbles and casters a day with no sales records for this year. I'm willing to entertain that red may have been a color during this time due to the marble that are red and hold in our hands today with 9's and tails. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Steph Posted December 28, 2014 Report Share Posted December 28, 2014 I got the impression that they didn't have a very experimental philosophy. They had a simple line which worked for them and they had no serious competition -- until Horace Hill's betrayal -- so they didn't mess with success. Not until they had to try to come up with something new in order to compete with Akro. Haven't read the MFC book in awhile, but that's the general idea I've retained. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mon Posted December 28, 2014 Author Report Share Posted December 28, 2014 They went from 7 down to 6 in their line of marbles but no mention of what was dropped. And you are correct about being content with what they had once everything settled. Post 29 are not my words, they are Cohill's stating many experimental runs. This factory was on a postage stamp lot early on and so small that they lifted and supported with stilts the old factory and built under the building for more space. I'm not sure how much space they would have for scrap piles.lol 10,000 a day in 04 plus 3 years of who knows what, with no records, and no one thinks it could have...................... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BuckEye Posted December 29, 2014 Report Share Posted December 29, 2014 They made yellow opaques for sure Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mon Posted December 29, 2014 Author Report Share Posted December 29, 2014 Craig, How is this verified? How many were made, sizes and year? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BuckEye Posted December 29, 2014 Report Share Posted December 29, 2014 They were in original coffin boxes AND I have pieces from Brian that were dug on site, definitely hand gathered and match. It's a very specific yellow Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mon Posted December 29, 2014 Author Report Share Posted December 29, 2014 ok, but how many were made, in what sizes and in what year? Also, any ads, letterheads or anything written and if so, what were they called? They may have lasted all the way to Akro packaging....see Akro timeline in Steph's study hall(1st box shown) . Anyone that has ever dug marbles can understand the possibility or should I say "certainty" of missing a great deal of what may be! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ann Posted December 29, 2014 Report Share Posted December 29, 2014 Just a little something to throw in here about the colors of MFC slags, and the lack of colors outside the standard amber, blue, green, etc. (adding purple later for a little while) - - - 1- A reminder that the production goal in this time period was imitation agate. 2- MFC "bricks" look a lot more like "imitation agate" than transparent red slags do . . . 3- Transparent red was expensive and diffucult to produce; red didn't become commercially viable until gold was replaced by selenium . . . 4- I think Steph's "don't mess with success" philosophy is very likely. 5- MFC may have "dabbled In red" in the early years but there is, at present, no evidence to suggest MFC ever commercially produced transparent red slags. But there is enough evidence to say that it is unlikely. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mon Posted December 29, 2014 Author Report Share Posted December 29, 2014 I have thought about bricks being the closest possible imitation agate in red and MF never looked back. Could be? Ann, statement 3 gives me more reasons to believe it could have been and early trial and dropped. I believe the book states that only 2 sizes were made during this time which would go along with what 9 and tails are floating around. Statement 4 is a given after 06 no.5 is a real stretch and yellow is the proof. I have zero but would like to see how many here can post pics of yellow MFC's! no mention in Cohill's book, anywhere! maybe due to the expense invested, transparent red marbles needed to be sold separate and I believe if you ask duffy, ron, bill and many other who ever dug marbles will attest to finding "pockets" of type/colored marbles. Also, knowing or feeling that just over there could be something no one has ever seen because it happened to them before. My mind goes to a place where the light is flooded in a color that all slags look, lets say blue. Give the id experts 100 slags to be id'ed by maker only and see how many tranny reds make it in the MFC pile. Many holes in this bucket of proof imho. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Steph Posted December 29, 2014 Report Share Posted December 29, 2014 Aren't yellows included in the Cohill book's photographs? p.s., Mon ... I got some mail. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ann Posted December 29, 2014 Report Share Posted December 29, 2014 IAnn, statement 3 gives me more reasons to believe it could have been and early trial and dropped. I believe the book states that only 2 sizes were made during this time which would go along with what 9 and tails are floating around. That wouldn't surprise me at all. Especially set against the background of Peltier cerises; I've been privileged (well, I whined a lot) to see a letter setting out in some detail Pelt's trials and tribulations during the development period of their Cerises and the Prima Agates, and the extra expenses involved. Didn't MFC also make a few more hand-gathered opaque game marbles, like the yellow ones? I'm thinking of the baby blue . . . and lavender? I could be wrong. I certainly don't have any. Like Craig, I've been putting my rather messy red nines with my Akros. The very well-formed red nines are the problem for me. Their cut marks just don't look like MFC ones. So I've been keeping them "in the vicinity of" my Peltier box. As "regular" red slags, as opposed to cerises, which are a more orange-y red. And . . . just sayin' . . . "being in possession of a formula for transparent red" does not equate to "made red slags." Henry Hellmers (Akro's glass chemist), for example, was in possession of more than 2,000 formulas for glass of various colors, including old German ones -- and the ones for MFC bricks (referred to in Hellmers' batch book as "carnelian," and ultimately Leighton formulas) And as Galen pointed out, so far we have no evidence that Leighton or any of the companies he started actually produced a transparent red. Chartreuse is the most oddly-colored melted pontil I have. So maybe Barberton. Others have any melted-pontil-color weirdos? But if I've learned anything at all while I've been slipping and sliding down this strange road of life, it's that anything can happen. So I have no problem entertaining the notion that MFC may have had red slags (among other currently-unknown things) on an experimental basis -- even though no transparent red cullet has been found on the site. To date. And there seems to be no evidence of the manufacture of transparent red slags in the exising company archives, which are remarkably complete. Much as I would like for them to have made some. Check that. Much as I would like for them to have made some and for me to have a few. Or a lot. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mon Posted December 29, 2014 Author Report Share Posted December 29, 2014 Didn't MFC also make a few more hand-gathered opaque game marbles, like the yellow ones? I'm thinking of the baby blue . . . and lavender? I could be wrong. I certainly don't have any. And there seems to be no evidence of the manufacture of transparent red slags in the exising company archives, which are remarkably complete. Much as I would like for them to have made some. Check that. Much as I would like for them to have made some and for me to have a few. Or a lot. Ann, I know my post are hard to read.......but the records, reported by Cohill, are not remarkable before 06 and spotty. The cut marks offer another problem in my mind in that, Cohill describes talented gatherers that teardrop the correct amount of glass without the need of having the shearer cut at all. This saved time and created the long tails we all love on the next marble being made. I'm not aware of other opaque colors other than jade, yellow and turquoise. There is mention of moss agate that were opaque, greenish blue gray with darker opaque grays, brown or, cornilean red, as a secondary color. Also, a formula sheet with the heading "moss agate or blood agate batch". Blood agate...interesting. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
machinemades Posted December 30, 2014 Report Share Posted December 30, 2014 I know MFC's Moss Agate was a different animal, but the original handcut, antique Moss Agate is a type of green translucent Agate with some black speckles loaded in it. Antique handcut Blood Agate is a type of Carnelian Agate with vanes that look very close to classic oxblood glass. Sami Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
akronmarbles Posted December 30, 2014 Report Share Posted December 30, 2014 MFC made no transparent red slags - red slags are made from selenium ruby glass - this was not common till the mid 1920's. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BuckEye Posted December 30, 2014 Report Share Posted December 30, 2014 Also if they made the supposed red slag for only experimental runs, they would be super rare. I have HG red nines out the wazoo. The numbers are disproportionate Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mon Posted December 30, 2014 Author Report Share Posted December 30, 2014 I may be so far out in left field that I'm standing in the Pacific....I'll give you all that! Yet for me, it's not about faith. Chad shows a transitional that he calls "German" that has transparent red on his site. Why German, I don't know? I think/hope we can all agree that MF was doing many uncommon things. Craig, out the wazoo.......not sure how many that is but for fun lets say your wazoo holds 4,799 plus one that's out, equals 4,800 HG red slags.LOL That is the reported number MF Christensen could make in the beginning, by himself, in one day. They did make turquoise as a main line and how many do you or others have? I've owned two.....disproportionate? I know.........Damn it Doug, they didn't make red transparent slags, NOT ONE! ok...white flag.....flap, flap, flap Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ann Posted December 30, 2014 Report Share Posted December 30, 2014 Damn it Doug, they didn't make red transparent slags! ok...white flag.....flap, flap, flap Whew. But while we're at it I should really thank you (all, but especially Mon), for sending me back to the MFC book (they did make an opaque lavender for a very little while when they introduced the purple onyx, so I don't yet have early onset anything yet, although it wouldn't be so early now), but mainly for prompting me to get out all my handgathered slags and really look at them again, one by one. Now I remember why I got so hung up on them for a while -- what nice marbles. Plus, I forgot I had a Persian turquoise I bought from Alan B. a good while ago. Felt like it was Christmas all over again. Except of course that got me wondering about early onset of something, all over again . . . P.S. I don't think your posts are hard to read, Mon . . . Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ann Posted December 30, 2014 Report Share Posted December 30, 2014 Aren't yellows included in the Cohill book's photographs? There are two labeled as "non-fluorescent yellow"" but the color photos in the book that I have leave a lot to be desired . . . Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Road Dog Posted December 30, 2014 Report Share Posted December 30, 2014 There is one bright yellow in this pic I thought to be MFC. The construction is right and all, but that bright yellow could be CAC as well? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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