Start Of Cane Handmade

[Rooneydog]

Thanks for looking.

Am I correct in classifying this as start of the cane, there appears to be no pontil and each of the swirls start at different points inside the "pole".

Also pic of pontil end.

[Steph]

It was a little confusing to see you say, "there appears to be no pontil," since obviously the marble has a pointil. I take it you mean that you're not seeing the roughness you might expect on one of the ends.

I don't have much technical knowledge about handmades so I'm just moving this to the main chat forum and hope someone else will help out with observations.

In the meantime, it might be helpful if you added an photo of the whole marble.

Thanks!

[Rooneydog]

Apologies for my terminology. Full marble below.

[Steph]

Sooooo, that view looks like a normal marble. Wouldn't call it start or end of cane.

But the view of one of the ends is pretty interesting, with that little loop in it. Hopefully someone with more insight than I can cast light on it for you.

[Alan]

It is a cane-cut marble. There is nothing at either cut off point that strikes me as unusual.

[Rooneydog]

It is a cane-cut marble. There is nothing at either cut off point that strikes me as unusual.

Thanks for the reply. So you are saying the pontils have been ground and polished (at one end) and it is common for the swirls to cease before the end ? also to have a band that splits between 1 and 2 parts when it really should be 4 to match the rest of the marble, poor workmanship ?

[cheese]

It's a nice marble with pontils that were done by someone who cared about their work and didn't make a sloppy cut of it. The bands on these are almost never 100% symmetrical, and they don't really reflect on the workmanshop of the marble maker. The bands are already in the rod of glass when the marble maker gets it, so it is what it is. It was handmade 100 years ago... it's amazing that it's as nice as it is!

[Rooneydog]

It's a nice marble with pontils that were done by someone who cared about their work and didn't make a sloppy cut of it. The bands on these are almost never 100% symmetrical, and they don't really reflect on the workmanshop of the marble maker. The bands are already in the rod of glass when the marble maker gets it, so it is what it is. It was handmade 100 years ago... it's amazing that it's as nice as it is!

Thanks for explaining cheese

[Alan]

Thanks for the reply. So you are saying the pontils have been ground and polished (at one end) and it is common for the swirls to cease before the end ? also to have a band that splits between 1 and 2 parts when it really should be 4 to match the rest of the marble, poor workmanship ?

Cane-cut handmades were not rocket surgery. They are generally not perfect in quite a few respects. That is because of how the cane is made - and more often - how each marble is necked-down, cut and finished. It was a volume business for a child's toy - so perfection wasn't the name of the game. The tools and the process were crude, the heat high and the pay low.

[Rooneydog]

Excellent photos - thanks Alan

[I'llhavethat1]

It's a nice looking marble. I think Alan's second to last pic might explain what you see on yours, as the cane is "necked down" it's pulled and drawn away from the marble so some of the inner threads/bands (like in your marble) don't always make it perfectly to the pontil. It can be exaggerated more on some examples vs. others.

[I'llhavethat1]

It's a nice marble with pontils that were done by someone who cared about their work and didn't make a sloppy cut of it. The bands on these are almost never 100% symmetrical, and they don't really reflect on the workmanshop of the marble maker. The bands are already in the rod of glass when the marble maker gets it, so it is what it is. It was handmade 100 years ago... it's amazing that it's as nice as it is!

I don't disagree but have to think that some good marble makers paired up with some of the good rod/cane makers and as a team they could pump out a higher percentage of 'nicer' quality marbles.

[Alan]

IMO - the greater challenge in finishing what are classically referred to as "pontils" (which really aren't) - is controlling heat throughout the process. Vintage marble makers didn't have access to the kind of tool used today. Managing heat in the cane throughout the process took skill and experience - and careful time management. The center of the cane is always hotter than the outside. So necking-down has a differing effect for casing glass, outer decoration (color bands etc) and the core. And the larger the diameter of the cane the more heat was stored. And of course different glass colors have somewhat different melting points.

Finishing what is referred to as the "pontil" is fraught with opportunities for imprecision. The first time I necked-down a 2" diameter cane I felt that 6 things were going wrong....heat, rotation speed, my pressure on the jacks, time....