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Curious About Champions


ann

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Ann with your first marble and more details. After looking at it more and more i think it may be headed towards Alley. The colors are fine for Alley. The pattern on the surface fits many Alleys. With many Ravenswoods the color striping will dive inside curving twisting around and around and out the other side. But usually not layered or stacked. Many of the Ravenswoods twist all through the marble more like the nicer Champions. Like the two clear red white and blue you posted. Did those come from a feller in WV ? WV swirls can be a challenge. They are not all the same.

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Pretty area. Could think of worse places to be on a hot summer day. :)

How concentrated are the marbles? Looks out of the way. How do people discover where to dig? Just random until they hit a vein?

post-91-0-49600400-1437493715.jpg

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Definatley out of the way. A little hike and long carry. Where to dig ? Lots of research gasoline open ears patience persistence questions determination . Give away signs on the ground from past expierence. The marbles here are random. There are no veins here or concentrated areas. This was a common 1940's-50's household or small business dump site. Not a marble factory site. The marbles were just discarded randomly in with the trash. A mother said if you don't pick up those marbles they are going in the trash. They had little or almost no value then. They were cheap kids toys. Some sites may be where a former employee lived. Employees took marbles home routinely,they were cheap,pennies for numbers of them. Mary Hazelbaker told me that she and her brother took handfuls of Alleys home after work. They carried them in their pockets for handwarmers during winter up the hill to their house above the Pennsboro factory. Once they climbed the hill to the house they threw the warm recent made marbles out of their pockets under the front porch. Remember this was the 1930's. At this time Lawerance Alley had cardboard in his shoes to cover the holes in the soles. Mary Hazelbaker was a good friend of mine. She and her brother both worked for Alley during all his time at Pennsboro. They worked without pay for weeks. Mr. Alley did not have funds for payroll at that time. They had faith in him that he would pay them later and he did. Then Chinese Checker marbles were needed and Alley could not produce them fast enough. Mary and her brother are now deceased. She lived in site of the Pennsboro Alley- dish factory all her life.

With digging marbles some days the best ever you get lucky and find a bucket full,some days you find a dozen and some days you go home total empty. Research ahead can help keep the empty days lesser. A bonus here was all the old odd shaped glass bottles of all sizes. A bucket full of them left with us. No way could we carry them all. I was told as we were leaving that if they ever mentioned digging again in July to remind them of this and never say yes in July. It was hot and we had very few dry clothes on not total soaked for hours with sweat. It sounds fun and exciting and it is for a while but it wears away quick. It is physical labor dirty work. Then even more work once you return home with the finds.

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Ann with your first marble and more details. After looking at it more and more i think it may be headed towards Alley. The colors are fine for Alley. The pattern on the surface fits many Alleys. With many Ravenswoods the color striping will dive inside curving twisting around and around and out the other side. But usually not layered or stacked. Many of the Ravenswoods twist all through the marble more like the nicer Champions . . .

I could accept Alley.

These were the Ravenswoods I have that seemed like they could be related --

post-2163-0-82354800-1437500805_thumb.jp

post-2163-0-16442700-1437500835_thumb.jp

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Alleys will flame much more and more often than Ravenswoods. It is possible and some are out there but very few Ravenswoods make sharp pointed flame tips. Even with small numbers of flame tips.

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