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What To Do With All These Swirls?


sclsu

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Sort them into different companies to the best of your abilities.

That is my dilemma. I was thinking about starting by colors, then sub categories by manufacturer. Which books might you recommend for help with swirls?
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Some of Edward Grist's last books, with Ron's marbles, Popular American Marbles and American Machine Made Marbles are good books for swirls. JoeMarbles site, Steph's Study Hall and searches here can also be informative.

To me, it looks like you have a lot of Alleys, perhaps some Champion, Ravenswood, etc., and some newer ones too. If you start sorting by color and then try to group marbles with the same-color and similar-patterns you'll be heading in the right direction. Then you could try bringing the groups of marbles with similar patterns and different colors together. It sounds like all kinds of fun to me!

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That is my dilemma. I was thinking about starting by colors, then sub categories by manufacturer. Which books might you recommend for help with swirls?

I chose to try to learn them the other way around. I bought large groups of correctly attributed marbles by as many different companies as I could find and studied them hands on. The two books mentioned already are also the best 2 I own for this purpose, but my Grist book has the totally wrong photos for a couple of companies which drives me mad. Popular American Marbles is worth its weight in gold no matter what some others might say about the quality of the photos.

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If you spread them all out in a single layer and take some more photos there are plenty of folks who would be happy to help you pick out special marbles for whatever reasons (like pulling out the JABOs for example) hint hint hint

I don't think spreading them out is an option, that container is 14"×10"×5", and filled to the brim. I do have a bunch of jabo shooters already separated :-)

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"I bought large groups of correctly attributed marbles . . . "

Indeed, nothing beats authentic examples, bags, boxes, dug, etc. for learning the different types, and the more you can have in hand, the better.

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And however you start (by color, or whatever), keep in mind that swirls can be a trial for all of us, and don't get discouraged. There are not that many swirls that have strong enough characteristics to indicate manufacture by a particular company. It's our Dirty Little Secret.

Did I just say that out loud?

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And however you start (by color, or whatever), keep in mind that swirls can be a trial for all of us, and don't get discouraged. There are not that many swirls that have strong enough characteristics to indicate manufacture by a particular company. It's our Dirty Little Secret.

Did I just say that out loud?

The exact reason I have put this off
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They can be a lot tougher to identify than other marbles, and the vast majority are common types, which most collectors aren't all that interested in (these are also the ones that are toughest to distinguish one maker from another). But some people that collect swirls can identify the more interesting ones (and a lot that aren't all that interesting) with pretty high accuracy. And serious swirl collectors would rather not offer an ID (or will hedge a lot), rather than misidentifying one.

Pick out some of the more interesting ones and post pics if you want some help.

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*eeek!* Have you opened it yet?

Is that a common bag?

Yes, those are St. Mary's Alleys. Is it the plastic which makes you say they were packaged after the Alley plant became Marble King? That would make sense.

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