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Aces That Don't Ace, Realers That Don't Real, Popeyes That Don't Pop


Steph

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This is a Pelt. It's translucent but not too far from opaque. It seems like it should be an Acme Realer. But no fire. I suspect it was made as a Realer but something was just off ... too much white crowding out the glow.

PeltierPatches007_cropped_45pct_zpsd0def

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Three people relatively recently have posted pix of marbles which I felt could be Aces. They backlit the marbles for me and reported no glow. But when I see lots like these found together in the wild (pix from Fred T and Sara) I can't help wondering.

FredThompson_LooksLikeAces_crop_zpsdcc02

Sara_LooksLikeAces_zps2796fd38.jpg

Especially when they have just the five colors on a white base and at least some of them look translucent, I can't help thinking they may have been part of an Ace run and they just got too much white.

3Akrosamplerboxes008_25pct_zpse0bc4b6b.j

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And we know about marbles which look like popeyes except they have hardly any clear or they have almost all clear and hardly any white ....

Take these for instance in case I can't find better examples. Say you have marbles with this much white or even more ....

Lotta_white_zpsd4e98d44.jpg

Sometimes the person posting one like that is told their marble doesn't qualify as a popeye, even though I'm SURE that Akro made them as part of a Tri-Onyx Agate run (the official name for popeyes) .....

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What do you do with your marbles which you are SURE are a particular thing -- or at least have a good chance of being such a thing -- but they just don't check off all the boxes modern collectors have come to think are necessary? :)

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I am not sure what you mean by too much white, In the pearless I consider the base glass totally different than that of a white glass of any type. No glow not a Realer IMO.. They made lots of patches that were not Realers.

As for the Aces I always wondered if just part of the base glass could opalescence or not???

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I just added some marbles to the popeye post to help make my point there. (:

The glow in marbles such as Realers (and some of the more modern marbles with fire inside) seems to come from the play of the light between the white and clear regions. I think the grain of the Realer is what gives it the glow, or the grain together with the type of white glass used.

Aces sometimes have conspicuous grain or striation, strengthening my hunch about what gives the marbles fire.

So when the glass batch had a whole lot of white, then that means less clear and less chance for the light to play around inside.

Here's Dani's Ace with hardly any white -- it made for a great pic:

ace-1.jpg

Here's another of Dani's Aces with much more white and the glow was more subdued, though it still looks good and probably looked great in hand:

Ace2_Dani_p22003.jpg

I have some marbles with the white base and black which I can see a soft orange glow through with strong backlight. I'm pretty positive those were from Ace runs.

And there could be ones you just can't see the light through -- but when I think about what run Akro made them in, I can't help thinking that it was more likely that they were made in an Ace run than in a Prize Name run.

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Here's a marble (posted by oldflame) which got a split decision awhile back.

yellowcork3jpg_zps2f1e35c9.jpg

I said flat out popeye. You agreed. Alan said popeye-ish and some might just call it a corkscrew because it was "somewhat lacking in the thready white strands".

You said you thought you saw some good wisps in two of the photos oldflame showed.

And my thought was "so what if you couldn't find any wisps?" What if it was solid white inside the clear, without any stray white strands? I was fascinated by the idea that the marble was part of an Akro tri-onyx run and would have been sold in a Popeye box, but that was somehow not enough to make it a Popeye. :)

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I think it is the characteristics of (refraction defraction nofraction really don't know exactly what make it glow orangish) opalescent glass that makes the glow. Like moonies. And the addition of white simply limits the amount of light passing through allowing for less glow, Is that what you are saying??

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Yeah, sounds close. Nice and simple.

Some white seems vital for the glow. Too much white means blocked light.

It's been my hunch for some time that Peltier was better at quality control of the Realer base glass than Akro was of the Ace base glass.

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I noticed the striation. That's the kind of glass which makes me think Ace in general. You showing it with two colors of ribbons could actually help me get over my desire to call all marbles with that base glass Ace.

I have another I will take a pic of that I think is a popeye but some will say not.

:thup::icon_popcorn:

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  • 2 weeks later...

Are you sure?

That looks like red glass washing over the edge of the white in this view.

20150210_213317.jpg

(The credit for the bump goes to the fact that I was looking at this thread wondering if it might contain something similar to what Bill posted here: http://marbleconnection.com/topic/20457-help-please )

(help please :D)

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FWIW. Hey Steph! :-) on the Aces, the black one you showed is really easy to tell in hand. the problem is trying to picture them!! The flash will bounce off the white filaments in it and make it look almost opaque. The only way to 'try' to capture is to uplight at the same time. They are on my 'nightmare' list for pictures.

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