⅝" Vitro Agate Opal?

[marblemanvintagemarbles]

Has some sort of spot on it. 

[akroorka]

4 hours ago, marblemanvintagemarbles said:

Has some sort of spot on it. 

 

I think that you are right on. The spot I do not really see as a detriment here.
Did you know that Marble companies purchased “cullet”(broken unused glass) from the same company that made "Ponds Cold Cream Jars?
I just love a good “Opal” marble.
Perhaps @Alan can give us some more depth here on the opal cullet.
Marble—On!!
 

[Alan]

I'll only comment generally (and not on opal glass).  Its junk in the glass.  Crud from the cullet pile or just junk in the furnace pot.

To no-one in particular:

Increasingly, there seems to be a bit of a growing sense, especially among newer collectors that vintage marble glass is (or should be) highly consistent in a marble production process.  That the quality should be high.  That stray glass colors suggest a "hybrid" or rarer/more sought after type.  This mindset doesn't recognize how crude the marble manufacturing process was, how simple the materials, how cost-constrained the production was and how crude the machinery and factory floor were.  Vintage marbles were manufactured for between 1/20th and 1/30 of one cent each - all costs in.  Silica, gas, machinery, plant, utilities, employees, rail spur, packaging and shipping etc etc etc.  It still needed to be shipped to wholesalers, who added their value (order taking, processing, F&C, shipping, salesmen, cost of doing business......).  Then they shipped and delivered to retailer parent companies, who broke the shipment down and shipped to retail stores (again, shipping costs).  Then the retailer (who had their own store, staff, utilities, insurance costs) sold it for about 1-2 cents each.  One of my favorite retailer boxes is an Akro gum box that offered one marble and a stick of gum for 1 cent.  One.  Cent.  With all the production, costs, distribution, shipping - and don't forget making a small profit.

The manufacturing process was crude.  Materials were added with shovels from an outdoor or indoor pile on the ground.  Cullet came from the cheapest sources.  Silica isn't a pure pile itself.  Pots dissolved in time and needed to be rebuilt - an onerous and slow process.  Spinner cups wore down.  Funnels got clogged:

 

 

This is all to say that I see an increasing trend towards expecting current day consistency and quality control in vintage marbles make 100+ years ago with crude processes in crude, dim factories (I have a B&W photo from the Ravenswood factory - wow!) for a tiny fraction of a cent.  I encourage everyone to ground yourselves in the reality of 100 years ago where these were throw-away children's toys to be intentionally beat up and lost in the dirt.  They had no other purpose.  No other future.  Consistency and quality of glass wasn't an interest.  They had neither the money or time to optimize a child's 1-cent throw-away toy.

This perspective can help us all calibrate our expectations grounded in the reality of the past.

 

 

[Fire1981]

These are my favorites 🔥

RAR

[Fire1981]

This is my Muddy Opal🔥🔥🔥

RAR

[Ric]

@Alan Good post, Alan. It really is important to keep things in perspective. The guys that were making these marbles in the 1930s were probably earning around $2.00 a day. And I'll bet they never could have imagined that one day, one of the 10,000 marbles they made on a given day might sell for a full year of their salary.

[Fire1981]

NO DOUBT! Come home dirty and tired. Eat a can of beans and whatever else you have and go to bed. Wake up with a cup of coffee from the grounds you saved and go back to work wearing the same dirty work clothes and hoping you don’t get busted up and can’t work. There wasn’t any real romance going on. A lot of women were doing the QC and sorting out the pit bound marbles.These marbles were being made during the Great Depression. So….here we are. Somewhere down the road there were nail and railroad spike factories being made as well. Both sides of my family were farmers. My Great Grandma told me if I get a high paying job….just don’t forget were I came from🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥

RAR