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Mf Christensen Red Slags


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Also, with a few companies having a MFC machine and a hand gathering process for sure at all, is it important to call these slags for what they are? Are standard colored slags just hand gathered slags with no definite maker?

I've gone around and around myself on this one. When I first started collecting hand-gathered slags I kept mine in three categories -- (1) MFC nines, (2) Somebody Else nines, and (3) swirly with no nines / probably Akro.

Time passed. I decided I didn't know enough to divide them that way and put all of the nines together.

Time passed. More time passed. I seperated out the nines with the most perfectly-shaped nines and straight cut lines and kept them together for a while.

Most recently (Last year? Once I got the MFC book), i mixed all the nines together again and tried to seperate them according to percentage of white to base glass going by what it said in the book about MFC and Akro . . .

I don't know what I think about the results of that yet. Still talking to myself about it.

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Thanks Ann!

Do you believe hand gathered slags were being made in Cambridge because by 1927 they left Payne? Were red slags shards ever found at Payne and if so, it would predate H. Hellmers credit. By 1930-1931 they had 2 to 3 years, along with all the other types, to make all these red slags with 9 & tails before closing.

Still talking to myself...lol

That straight cut line confuses me, in that.......how would anyone do it differently than MFC did with a glob of glass at the end of a punty?

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I've never seen any marble evidence from Payne. So personally I've wondered if Christensen Agate existed in Payne only on paper, or if the production there was very limited. I think it moved and settled into production in Cambridge because gas was cheaper there, and Cambridge Glass was there.

Does anybody know anything about CAC's first site at Payne? That would be interesting . . .

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post-3519-0-96606600-1421987632_thumb.jppost-3519-0-16887800-1421987680_thumb.jpWhat a hell of a post, see if I can get a few pics in, interesting how things change over a few years as far as MFC to Cac then Akro hand gathered, top 2 7/8th then 13/16ths 3/4 and 5/8th and a touch under 5/8th, interesting Aug 2013 at the Canton show I showed the top 2 and Craig you said MFC and Mr Estepp also said MFC on those 7/8ths examples Now ??? I have a nice MFC lot with all colors coming in a day or two I'll do a post when they arrive many sizes as well funny though no red, but a couple of bricks it appears DB.

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I hope this post does not distract from 1alleynut's post. Hope you get replies and would like to see pics of that MFC lot.

Ann's post caught me by surprise and I just assumed they made marbles at Payne. Mig's info states that in April, 1927 CAC was close to starting up and Marblealan's site claims that CAC moved to Cambridge in 1927. Any ephemera for Payne?

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How big was this dig ........I remember seeing somewhere pics of a couple of small trenches in a back yard...but could be wrong. If Ann's dates of 30 or 31 for the first really commercial usage of selenium red glass, with the stuff CAC was making, do you think they would be hand gathering red slags? Did they have one machine or stick money into making/buying more 2 wheelers......just saying

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I have never heard a thing about CAC using the MFC style rounding machines. Pretty sure the Auger style were in place at Peltier and Akro before CAC started pumping out marbles. They were used for hand gathered marbles at Akro and Peltier

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I have never heard a thing about CAC using the MFC style rounding machines. Pretty sure the Auger style were in place at Peltier and Akro before CAC started pumping out marbles. They were used for hand gathered marbles at Akro and Peltier

Page 87 of Wadsworth's testimony talks about a MFC machine Mr. Stahl borrowed and states he did not know that it was to be used in connection with that Christensen Agate Company.

Maybe they returned it and never used it .....still, why would you be hand gathering marbles in the 1930's? Maybe newbies cut their teeth on this and learned more about glass before running a machine.

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Like Akro and Peltier I think CAC hand gathered until they got their gob feeders up and running. Not sure of the date. Reading that the owners were not really into marbles maybe they didn't immediately want to foot the expense of setting up the gob feeders?? Or maybe a lot of the fantastic types actually were hand gathered and they didn't want to mess with a good thing??

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All I've heard about the date for the use of automatic gob feeders seems to point to 1927 or 1928. In Henry Hellmers' published recollection, though, he says that while he was at Akro "Machine-made marbles came about 1926 and we developed new colors for them."

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What was the original price of a cobra or guinea vs a flame? Was it cost effective to hand gather?

The following is entirely speculative, and not necessarily my opinion, but . . . might as well throw it in here, since it's come up . . .

In a recent (within the past couple of years) and somewhat controversial book on Arnold Fiedler, a suggestion is made that guineas and cobras (but not necessarily all striped transparents) were made by hand by Fiedler himself, as a way to show off the range of colors he (and by extension Christiansen Agate) had. Hand-gathered / prepared (I'll leave that call to my betters) and rounded by machine. Kind of like his "thing." Not necessarily for mass production.

We don't really have any paperwork from CAC (and if Steph hasn't seen a CAC ad I don't know who would have . . . ), but I have the impression that cost-effectiveness was not necessarily CAC's driving force. Or maybe it was, but not in the way we are accustomed to think. They probably decided to set themselves apart from Akro and Peltier with their fabulous colors -- some their own and some from Cambridge Glass -- but they could use such expensive chemicals, etc., only so long, and possibly put themselves out of business doing so.

I think we all mourn CAC's short life!

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