My thoughts about these special runs such as Jabo, SMM and Dave's Appalachian Swirls

[The Nickel Guy]

First off, I just think they are cool bean marbles. However, I am totally lost when it comes to identifying them by run. For one thing, they seem to start out as one kind of marble and thousands later they have morphed into something completely different. The first marbles in the making look absolutely nothing like those at the end. ( At least quite often )

So they get a name for the day, not so much for what they look like I suppose.

We see a group of perhaps 15, 16, 20 or 25 of a run packaged together from a particular run and are identified but another box from the same run could look like a completely different assortment. 

Here's my issue, I wish somehow, I could just put them all in a bag, all mixed up, regardless of the runs and years etc and say here's my Jabo collection. And over here, these are my Sammy's, and these are Dave's in this box. But . . . it seems taboo to mix them up. They must reside together forever in their little pigeon holes, identified and boxed up forever as such and such.

If I ever did let them loose, and then herd them up together they would be free and actually, I would not know the difference anyhow. To me they all look pretty neat and different than the next.

I would actually rather collect these individually, rather than by a small sampling from a run.

It was just my thoughts. 

[akroorka]

Lets ask @Nantucketdink for a link or two for a better Idea here.

There are a few older links that ID these quite well.

They are hard to keep up with unless you have a passion for them.

Marble--On!!

[The Nickel Guy]

Not to worry. Oh, I think I'm familiar with the handful of links. It would cost a fortune to collect small batches of all the runs that might be available, Fun yes, but awful expensive.

My point is that the samplings are just that and really don't always represent the bigger picture.

[Alan]

Most vintage marble manufacturers had product lines.  Those product lines were documented in sales brochures for retailers to order from.  They were also represented in Salesman's Boxes that were used for retailers to see and order from.  Retailers knew what sold and what they wanted to offer buyers.  Manufacturer production aligned with orders (mostly).

Jabo and SMM didn't run that way.  Lets focus on Jabo investor runs, since they are what you likely have most of.  Investor runs.  Those run participants decided what dollar amount they wanted to spend on glass and in most cases, what "experiments" they wanted to do (usually more costly glass additives).  Of all conversations I have had, I don't know of investor run intentions of producing marbles of a specific appearance, although goals of oxblood, transparent colors etc existed and glass was ordered by Dave M. to that preference.

Keep in mind that dialing in the glass pot to specific intended colors at the rollers is a tricky thing subject to several variables, weather and glass pot age and condition not being the least of them.  Dave M was a skilled and experienced guy to make those adjustments based on what he was seeing.  I consider variation in an investor run to be the norm.  I've never heard it said that they wanted or expected to get consistency in the multi-day run.  Variation was a plus.

I'll note that there is a term that was used at the time of Jabo investor production known as a "tank wash".  While the concept is real in the business,  the reason for its use in investor run really has nothing to do with clearing a glass pot for a new batch.

Shifting:  Jabo "Classics" (5/8") pre-dated investor runs IIRC.  See this link for more on the valued work that Michael Warnelis did for the hobby piecing together like Classics into incredible and well-priced Jabo Classics boxes.  Thank you Mike.

https://marbleconnection.com/topic/23863-michael-warnelis/

Jabo investor runs represented a first opportunity for collectors to have a hand in making marble towards their appearance goals.

I'll defer to others that may want to post details on SMM.

 

I say:  "Collect what you like".  I wouldn't think too much about whether marbles from a 24-hour run are consistent.  They won't be.  But the variation is their strength, not their weakness.  It may make us research more, look at the glass more closely and think about the diversity.  Those are good things.

[Fire1981]

Jabo brought back and created a new timeline with Jabos in the past 30 years. How many runs during that time did Jabo have? We're still trying to ID marbles that are now 200 years old to current time. It would make for a great book🔥

RAR

[The Nickel Guy]

I sure do appreciate that well written response Alan. It will be read several times by me for sure but I can see the obvious effort you put into writing this to help me understand these better. Thank you and thanks to all who took the time to read and think about this and for your added posts too. 

 

[Alan]

I thought that I would continue my earlier thoughts on Jabo with a focus on investor runs after a fairly long discussion with a person who was a regular on the Tribute runs and reasonably knowledgeable about the Joker runs.  Bear with my train of writing because the conversation was far-ranging and I kept tugging it back to the OP's original point and my notes follow that conversation serpentine flow.

The basic characteristic of the Joker runs was that the investors had specific ideas of what they wanted the result to (roughly) look like and they specified that to Dave M.  The ran a black aventurine experiment that went well.  "They did their own thing".  Some use of dark colors made the run go somewhat dark with results being satisfactory and some less so.

The Tribute runs were different.  The investors gave Dave M. leeway to choose glass.  Dave started with showing color samples with two prior visits with some of the investors well before the run.  The discussions in total took up many hours.  (Most of those discussion have been recorded and I am trying to get access to those to transcribe them.  They are already partially transcribed and I understand that the editing is very slow and, very time-consuming (even automated)).  All of those discussion were about glass, glass choices, glass color palette (color wheel) and I understand that drawings exist from those discussions. Also, tank rebuild process photos.

The Tribute runs chose (in some cases) a white base glass of Fenton "Hobnail White".  Some of the in-the-moment choices for glass by investor individuals were added.  The red glass was "fussy" and could easily be problematic ("It does what it wants to").  Sometimes they had to change the red out.  (MK sometimes had problems with that red glass and the problem was not easily corrected despite considerable time, effort and consultation with other glass makers). 

The Tribute run used roughly $10-20,000. of glass in a 24 hour period.  There was a lot of breakage in the Tribute runs.  That breakage was trash.

To your question of consistency in the run and the ability to ID:  If the run kept the same base glass, the progression in the run can be seen if you look at a large enough sample set.

 

Hope this builds insight.

Alan