crashbelt Posted October 22, 2021 Report Share Posted October 22, 2021 I would appreciate some help please. All my vintage solitaire boards have German handmades except this one I bought in Edinburgh 25 years ago. I have a few 20th Century boards with European (I think) machine mades but this one is unique to my collection as appearing to be old but with maybe American early machine made marbles. I wondered if the 9-shaped swirls in the glass meant they could be MFC slags, but I haven't a clue really! Any advice would be great. Whilst on the subject I have just 3 other mibs which I think could be US machine mades too and any thoughts on those would be really cool too. Thanks in advance, and if you need more pics to helps I'll gladly oblige! 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
William Posted October 22, 2021 Report Share Posted October 22, 2021 Those are nice, could you take a couple of closer shots showing more detail of the mibs? 😊 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wvrons Posted October 22, 2021 Report Share Posted October 22, 2021 The 9 twist pattern can tell you it was hand gathered. But not by a certain maker. Many US marble companies started with making hand gathered slags. Some are MFC, Navarre, Akro, Peltier, several were in Ohio. Along with the US were other countries like Japan, Asia and others. Some hand gathered slags can be identified but many are still a guess. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
akronmarbles Posted October 22, 2021 Report Share Posted October 22, 2021 Like Ron said, all early US manufacturers made hand gathered machine rounded "slags". Starting with MFC, Akro, Peltier, and Christensen Agate for sure in Payne, Ohio and quite possibly still in Cambridge at the very start there. If you could date the marbles on the board prior to 1914ish - then it could be likely attributed to MFC. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
I'llhavethat1 Posted October 22, 2021 Report Share Posted October 22, 2021 Nice tight patterns on those. How small are they? Any evidence of pontils (on the opposite side of the 9's? The 3 other mibs you might want to take closer pics of and post in a new thread as well. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
schmoozer Posted October 23, 2021 Report Share Posted October 23, 2021 17 hours ago, crashbelt said: I would appreciate some help please. All my vintage solitaire boards have German handmades except this one I bought in Edinburgh 25 years ago. I have a few 20th Century boards with European (I think) machine mades but this one is unique to my collection as appearing to be old but with maybe American early machine made marbles. I wondered if the 9-shaped swirls in the glass meant they could be MFC slags, but I haven't a clue really! Any advice would be great. Whilst on the subject I have just 3 other mibs which I think could be US machine mades too and any thoughts on those would be really cool too. Thanks in advance, and if you need more pics to helps I'll gladly oblige! Who cares who made them??? Awesome set! The 3 singles appear to be AKRO at first glance. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Berryb Posted October 23, 2021 Report Share Posted October 23, 2021 Used ta be that a 9 and tail meant MFC automatically. As you can see from the above responses, that is no longer the case. It made for easier IDs even if it was wrong. My Block's book says that Akro made more slags than MFC, CAC, and Pelt, combined. Don't know if that applies to the hand gathered era, but I suspect it's not too far off the mark. Anyway that's a really nice bunch of slags. Thanks Bruce Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Akro75 Posted October 23, 2021 Report Share Posted October 23, 2021 I absolutely love slags, an under appreciated marble. Those are beautiful. Thanks for sharing Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
crashbelt Posted October 24, 2021 Author Report Share Posted October 24, 2021 Wow - thanks for all that advice. Just confirms my complete lack of knowledge of US machine-mades!! Here's a close up of the green slags. They're 9/16"-5/8" and I can't find any trace of pontil marks. I doubt that will enable any more light to be shed on the makers from your advice and I can't date the mibs or the board to pre or post 1914. Here's also a close up of the other 3 - they're more like 11/16"-3/4". Any further enlightenment would be great, but I'm just happy to have a complete set of green slag marbles with the mahogany board - makes a nice change from all my Germans!!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
William Posted October 24, 2021 Report Share Posted October 24, 2021 1 hour ago, crashbelt said: Wow - thanks for all that advice. Just confirms my complete lack of knowledge of US machine-mades!! Here's a close up of the green slags. They're 9/16"-5/8" and I can't find any trace of pontil marks. I doubt that will enable any more light to be shed on the makers from your advice and I can't date the mibs or the board to pre or post 1914. Here's also a close up of the other 3 - they're more like 11/16"-3/4". Any further enlightenment would be great, but I'm just happy to have a complete set of green slag marbles with the mahogany board - makes a nice change from all my Germans!!! Man, those are nice! 👍 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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