C.a. Guinea Fragment With Visible Shear Mark...

[B.T.]

Here’s another interseting and cool c.a. artifact.

This guinea fragment actually shows the shear mark....

BT

[tankgrrl29]

hey!! that's what my marbles look like when i try to use those snippers i bought!

[Kokoken]

Is it a shearer mark or a plier mark ?? I thought I saw grooves. I wonder if this fragment, rather than being the result of production, was a result of cleaning a pot ot a tank hence the plier mark. Who knows ?

A very interesting piece.

[roany poany]

[Road Dog]

That Sketch'n sure looks familiar.

[I LOVE MARBLES]

Hey Bill, I remember a thread on Alan's old board, many years ago, of someone finding Guinea cane pieces, at the Cambridge site. In other words, the canes were made first, then fed into the cutter, or maybe even hand-cut, I don't know, just asking??? This cane theory, does make sense to me, because so few single cut line Guineas, with most being two cut line varieties. Bill, can yours be one of those cane ends, or am I just doing an exercise in pure speculation?

Scott

[tankgrrl29]

hmmm....would that make a Cobra Guinea a "cloud"?

[Kokoken]

I have seen the cane piece. It blew my mind. It is about 4 inches long by about 5/8 diameter and the owner says it was found at the factory site. All the typical guinea colors are on the outside of the clear glass core. They are not spots but even stripes of each color which in my mind would make for more of a Joseph Coat marble. I don't get it. Another piece in the Christensen Agate puzzle for sure. The owner originally had 2 such pieces but sold one of them.

[B.T.]

Buddy did you go to the school of I know everything about marbles:-)...lol:-)

I hear tuition is noting more than a worship clause:-)

Where blind worship is required as though master is the dali lama of marblehood!

You know where all of us don't know anything and if we act as though we do we get lectured by the great one...lol

you know that diagram does really look familiar:-):-):-)

[B.T.]

I am still attending the school of "I don't know s*^$#t about marbles and the more I learn about marbles, the more I learn, that I need to learn more about marbles"

Man that's a mouthful:-)..... Imagine the letter head...lol

Tuition at this school is free all you have to do to enroll is show up with a smile on your face.

It's open to everybody!!!!

Experience is the most popular teacher at this school.

Everybody wants to get in this class cause it's fun!!!

The learning curve at this school is never ending.

Remember when you attack me guys:-)...

that this is nothing more than thoughtful speculation and I do not pretend for a second to know how they were actually made!!!

I think it's more likely they were made with molten gobs rolled in frit vs an actual cane. A cane infers glass that has cooled and is solidified ..... I think???....lol:-) Scott, perhaps you were thinking of a molten gob??? This way the gob is still hot enough for someone to roll it in frit and to cut smaller individual gobs that were then dropped into the rounding groves.... "forming machine." Hard to say exactly how long the larger gobs were but envision a gathering boy gathering up a molten gob and rolling it in frit and someone else standing there cutting the pieces off one by one. This is pure speculation ....lol At this point I doubt they had developed the machinery using continuous molten stream of glass that could make spots on the molten glass...:-) ...and yes the end gobs could indeed be structured like a cloud, similar to the cobra I posted the other day. Certainly one of these gobs rolled in frit might not have been used, thus solidifying and creating a cane like artifact?? .... I am probably wrong again:-)!!!!!!! .Thoughts.....

I think Scott Meyer demostrated this technique at Weaton Village on the Vitro machine he refurbished!!!

How f*&$#$@&%&^ cool!!

I have two marbles he made on this machine, a guinea type, and a cobra type.

here's pick of a single cut line 11/16" amber guinea backlit. It looks molten...lol:-)

[Sword44]

Well shucks. I didn' no nothun' 'bout dem guineas an gobs and cut lines an grooves but that diagram made it all clear ta me! I still don' no nuthun! But I know what I like and that pruitea guinea, now that I like! But ya know, I'll bet Mark Block was responsible fer cuttin' it up like that! Gotta be somebody's fault. I didn' do it. No. Rilly. To be honest, this is a bogus review. Honest. Maybe we should leave off naming marbles and just name marble collectors. An a motto - we should have a motto: More Personality - Fewer Marbles!

Sword44

[Jeff Hale]

Yeah sure, you guys figured it out, LOL.

[B.T.]

Either way, like you said we will most likely never know absolutely for sure.... Glad to hear you be diplomatic dude...:-)

Seems to me some if not all of the so called exotics could have been hand gathered as well:-) Just my humble opinion... HELL I DON"T KNOW:-) Especially ones with five or more colors.... like guineas. When you start putting more colors then that together for very long they bleed and blend. I think it is plausible this is why there are such fewer numbers of both types than there are slags. If they had been made using continous stream technology there should be a hell of a lot more of both guineas and the fancy multicolored slags made. I have mixed some glass a few times:-) I think this is hard to dismiss completely. One thing is for sure in my mind, they both were made this way at first and then machinery may possibly have been adpated to achieve the same end???..... However, the height of their productio was 27, 28, and 29? and we know what happened in august on a certain Black Monday! One has to wonder how all these variables impacted the production timeline relative to actual production numbers. I still can't envision spots form a continous stream! call me crazy I am sure someone will:-)!!!!!

Like I said, I don't know nor do I really care other than a passing curiousity!! I am glad it's a topic that others find interesting and and worthy of debate as long as individuals act their age:-)..

I just like pretty marbles:-)

BT

[I'llhavethat1]

I'd expect something like that to come out of a nozzle type thingy when working with hot-enough-to-mold type materials. Machines don't run 24/7 all the time - they need to be fixed, maintained between runs, power failure etc.

That Guinea is nice backlit, but scary good in full color.

[akronmarbles]

IMHO - hand gathered and delivered to a forming machine. I was lucky enough to see the fragment Bill pictured in person......

[lstmmrbls]

I wish I knew. There does appear to be hand gathered traits to many of the CAC marbles. And I have seen some with seams where it is very obvious. the only problem I have is I have never seen any where the color spots or threads appear seperate from the base glass. Like you see in the types that are known to have had the frit applied at the last stage before or during rounding. something very different from any other marbles was done with CACs. As the two seamers almost always have the very strange looping twisting turning back on itslf at one side between the seams. Why aren't both sides(ends) the same. Maybe something to do with hand gathereing? And how does this happen. It is very obvious that there is a lot more to CACs than a single stream of glass being cutoff by shears. this could not happen like that. Peace,Galen

[Shamrock Marbles]

I'm a little surprised this thread died before it's prime!

Galen,

You bring up a very interesting point.

Very few actually look at the "construction features" and try to determine how they are made.

Now, at times, we are quick to point at certain patent records to state our case.

From my limited research of the patents, I could not find any relavent "guinea" patents.

I would love to be pointed in the proper direction if they did exist.

However, based on my actual real-life experience, I would have to agree with Brian Graham.

Guineas are Hand-Gathered and Machine-Rounded.

Now, one of the interesting dynamics of Hand-Gathered glass is the need to keep the punty rotating.

If you stop rotating, the molten gob will begin to flow off the end of the pipe due to gravity.

Looking at double cut line CA marbles, the cut off lines sometimes exhibit two unique characteristics.

First, one cut line looks completely melted in and the second cut line looks less melted in or rough.

Second, each cut line is not on the same angle or plane.

That is, if they were single stream fed, then I would expect that the cut lines would be 180-degrees apart and roughly on the same plane.

I would like to see a picture of the other cutline on the marble you posted.

Also, it would be interesting to see a photo (or photos) that would show the relative positions of each cut line.

As far as applying frit during the rounding process, this would not net you a real CA Guinea, but it would get you a marble that is identical to a Vitro Spotted marble (it don't remember what these are actually called).

I'll post a special marble that had frit applied during the rounding process, but I'll need to take some pictures.

Sincerely,

John McCormick

"Shamrock Marbles"

[lstmmrbls]

John, The more I study the CACs the crazier they appear. Here is the other seam of that marble. And a pic of the side that shows color from one half actually becoming color on the other half. Impossible(?)but actually happening. The next(white) shows how one half appears to layer on top of the other half. And the last group of pics is a two seamer that actually has some color banding actually completely looping the whole marble like a single seam. Crazy stuff. It does appear as if the single seam and 2 seamers were made on the same equipment somehow. Peace,Galen

[Shamrock Marbles]

Galen,

Great photos!

Notice the "S" on the side of the marbles?

This is an exact construction feature that causes one to scratch their noggin'.

This is something that can be created by the turning of a punty rod between cuts.

There are patent records showing a gob feeding mechanism that has a spinning rod set at an angle.

I will have to find the exact patent number for reference.

However, even though there is a patent record showing a mechanism, one would have to prove that a certain company either owned or licensed that technology.

Remember that most machinery was designed to replicate a manual function.

The main idea was to remove labor costs.

This may be an element that is lost to time.

CA may not have been cost competative with their peers.

How could one compete with a fully automated Akro spinning cup machine when you 're trying to do it manually?

The glass industry was ruthless back then, and Hartford-Empire was known not to play fair.

Anyhow, let's keep the discussion alive.

I'll look through my stuff and take a few more pictures.

Sincerely,

John McCormick

"Shamrock Marbles"

[lstmmrbls]

The S is very common on on one side of the 2 seamers, If not an S it is some kind of loop. I bet 99 out of 100 have something strange going on on one side of the marble, The opposite side usually is like one would imagine (like most 2 seam marbles). Crazy stuff. And looking at the transparent types does not help at all(LOL) Peace,Galen

[FIRE81]

The one Guinea I have is the

" Euro Bullet Mold"

With all the concepts concerning the

production of the CAC and the other

"TYPE" of Euro Guinea. The Bullet Mold

seems to still have the same surface

characteristics as ALL of thee above.

But as far as the contruction and production

methods used to make these.....are completly

different........( RIGHT ????? )

Any ideas on the " Poor Man's/Women's "

Bullets ????

RAR........

[bigjohn691500]

Pre- Shear mark, lol

[Shamrock Marbles]

Galen,

Here's that marble with frit.

It was made with a gob of clear glass dropped into the marble machine.

As soon as it started rolling, multi-colored frit (room temperture) was sprinkled onto the marble.

There was enough heat for the frit to adhere, but not enough to heat the frit so that it "blended" into the surface.

I went digging through my patent files at work today.

Patent number 1,828,226 was a very interesting read (Hartford-Empire).

It was applied for on October 15, 1927.

The patent was assigned on October 20, 1931.

This patent was for "feeding glass charges of different colors".

Patent 1,828,226 states:

"My invention relates to apparatus for and methods of feeding molten glass and is particularly adapted for use in the manufacture of toy marbles or other objects wherein glass of several different colors are embodied."

"In the manufacture of marbles, for example, it is the practice to imitate as closely as possible the color effects of agate and to that end it has been the practice to supply the marble forming machine with charges made up of glass of two or more colors so collected as to provide a basic color having streaks or striae of other colors therethrough, it being desired that the streaks be more or less irregular and to thus more closely imitate the natural colorig of agate."

Here's the good part...

"Prior to my invention, it has been customary to feed glass for this purpose by hand, the gather collecting on his punty portions of each gather from two or more supplies of different colored glass. It is the purpose of my invention to provide means and methods by which glass of several different colors or kinds may be automatically mixed in a manner desirable for the production of glass marbles and automatically fed to the forming machine in charges of proper size, shape and viscosity and with uniformity in weight and shape but non-uniformity in distributionof color between successive charges."

This patent gives us some insight to the art of gathering prior to this invention.

You can download this patent at www.uspto.gov.

Anyhow, I'm still digging through the patents and will post more when I get time.

Sincerely,

John McCormick

"Shamrock Marbles"

[Shamrock Marbles]

Rick,

How are you doing?

Let's break the marble making process in two.

The first half concerns the gathering of glass and it's manipulation.

The second half concerns the rounding process.

I have absolutely no evidence to support my theory, but I would hazard a guess that Bullet-mold marbles were hand-gathered.

There are only so many ways to get patterns on (or through) the glass.

I speculate that a gob of base color was gathered.

Multi-colored frit was spread on a marver.

The gob was rolled in the frit and then reheated to melt the frit into the base.

After the desired pattern was achieved and the gob was thoroughly heated, it was placed into a mechanism.

This deviced had two separate and equal hemispheres.

So, when it closed down on the gob, it made a spherical marble.

Now, if there was a little too much glass, the excess was squeezed out the edges.

(Kind of like overfilling a waffle machine.)

Sometimes there is a wide band around the equator of the marble.

Now, there are different ways one could remove the excess flash.

The mechanisms that I've seen can also be used to make glass beads and buttons.

Clearer?

Sincerely,

John McCormick

"Shamrock Marbles"

[FIRE81]

Thanx John !

I kinda figured it'd be a timely way to

produced this kind of marble unless

the actual molds had 10-20 seperate

cups or more .

Great patent info. Tends to give

one the impression there was ALOT

of lateral freedom when perfecting

this Method/Patent.

But then this is the reason this thread is what it is !

RAR......