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Ravenswood Novelty Marbles - A Review Of Varieties


Alan

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Nice thread again. I have several marbles from all these sources,even Marlow ( even recently). The mans name with the Ravenswoods at Columbus and other shows was another Ron S. (not Ron Shaw). I purchased Ravenswoods from him regular for about 3-4 years. This is a great picture set of Ravenswoods,but there are many more and lots that was not in the 1987 find. I agree that Patrys marbles were not Ravenswoods. As you can see by these post that some Ravenswoods and Alley marbles are the same exact identical colors,patterns,etc. Ravenswood did make flames,but not in any large numbers and most are very close or the same as Alleys. Some Ravenswoods glow but more different color combinations of Alleys glow. Again, Alley was the first person to make a marble at Ravenswood Glass. While they were making raw batch glass,they used original Alley recipes. Later they used cullet and the marbles changed some. Some of the main cullet supplies were Ponds cold creme jars,Vitrolite tile,Fenton glass that glowed,hobnail,plus clear Fenton,Vitro marbles and cullet, and others. I still have some reservation or question about one or maybe two kinds of the 1987 find actually being made by Ravenswood. Marbles switched hands among companies and it may impossible to get any single company 100% correct. These companies produced a lot of marbles.

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Nice thread again. I have several marbles from all these sources,even Marlow ( even recently). The mans name with the Ravenswoods at Columbus and other shows was another Ron S. (not Ron Shaw). I purchased Ravenswoods from him regular for about 3-4 years. This is a great picture set of Ravenswoods,but there are many more and lots that was not in the 1987 find. I agree that Patrys marbles were not Ravenswoods. As you can see by these post that some Ravenswoods and Alley marbles are the same exact identical colors,patterns,etc. Ravenswood did make flames,but not in any large numbers and most are very close or the same as Alleys. Some Ravenswoods glow but more different color combinations of Alleys glow. Again, Alley was the first person to make a marble at Ravenswood Glass. While they were making raw batch glass,they used original Alley recipes. Later they used cullet and the marbles changed some. Some of the main cullet supplies were Ponds cold creme jars,Vitrolite tile,Fenton glass that glowed,hobnail,plus clear Fenton,Vitro marbles and cullet, and others. I still have some reservation or question about one or maybe two kinds of the 1987 find actually being made by Ravenswood. Marbles switched hands among companies and it may impossible to get any single company 100% correct. These companies produced a lot of marbles.

Ron Simplican is the fellow you are referring to I believe, who is a long time collector. Yes he did have a nice display of Ravenswoods (I have a couple display cases myself of his and some from Ron Shephard's forays into the Ohio River :-) ). Ron also had Christensen Agate cullet he dug many years ago at CA plant. If you want to get a true take on the Christensen Agate exotics talk to this very long term collector.

He didn't think they were original and by the way Les Jones wasn't even sure himself ( I know because he told me this in person). When a guy walks into your room with a 100 guineas for sale as I saw in Indiana show some years ago the nose gets to working...

Don

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  • 4 months later...

Nice thread again. I have several marbles from all these sources,even Marlow ( even recently). The mans name with the Ravenswoods at Columbus and other shows was another Ron S. (not Ron Shaw). I purchased Ravenswoods from him regular for about 3-4 years. This is a great picture set of Ravenswoods,but there are many more and lots that was not in the 1987 find. I agree that Patrys marbles were not Ravenswoods. As you can see by these post that some Ravenswoods and Alley marbles are the same exact identical colors,patterns,etc. Ravenswood did make flames,but not in any large numbers and most are very close or the same as Alleys. Some Ravenswoods glow but more different color combinations of Alleys glow. Again, Alley was the first person to make a marble at Ravenswood Glass. While they were making raw batch glass,they used original Alley recipes. Later they used cullet and the marbles changed some. Some of the main cullet supplies were Ponds cold creme jars,Vitrolite tile,Fenton glass that glowed,hobnail,plus clear Fenton,Vitro marbles and cullet, and others. I still have some reservation or question about one or maybe two kinds of the 1987 find actually being made by Ravenswood. Marbles switched hands among companies and it may impossible to get any single company 100% correct. These companies produced a lot of marbles.

Patry's marbles look like Champion Electrics...

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Thanks for reminding me. Yes, it was Ron Simplican and he regularly had a significant display of Ravenswood marbles. One year I purchased a 3/4"+ Ravenswood Brown marble from him which I have to this day.

When I was attempting to obtain opinions around the country in 2002 regarding the vaildity of the CAC Exotics I repeatedly contacted Ron by mail in hopes of some input from him because I had been told he did not consider them legit. Unfortunately he never responded but I do not fault him because of that. My understanding is that he frankly did not want to have anything to do with the subject and personally chose not to collect them when he easily could have.

All the other eleven or so serious CAC collectors to the person considered them legitimate and on their say-so I responded with a Statement about the marbles to the general marble community. I really thought I had been even-handed about the controversy. Keep in mind that I was asked to do this by a collector who thought they were fakes and who was exceedingly disappointed in my conclusions. Basically he told me to go to hell! David Chamberlain

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Thanks for resurrecting this thread. I missed it the first time around, and I've been looking for some good information on Ravenswood. Unfortunately it also means I'm going to have to dig through my mountain of Jabos again, because I'm pretty sure I've thrown some Ravenswoods in there!

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  • 6 months later...

Thank you for this great thread Alan!

I do have a question though. What about the 30 marble count blue jobber boxes that contain early Ravenswood marbles? Were they made in large enough batchs to have a clear idea how to place them or id them? Now that I have a box, and a few have the metalic swirling, plus the very out of roundness of almost all of them, I think it would be easier for me to pick them out. But.....how many of these marbles were made and how available are they besides in the jobber boxes?

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You see the other USA marble boxes in the larger sizes much more often than you do the smaller blue Ravenswood box I am convinced. I like those marbles in there; they are all together different than the ones from the 1987 find that I have been talking about in sets of 33 different. Actually I put together once a set of '57' different. And you're right they all seem a little or lot out-of-round. The marbles in them are similar to the ones also dug at the Hastings Pine Grove dump site. I got examples of those from Mike Johnson. I think my Ravenswood article shows these well.

Again, I am basing my thoughts on the availability of these only by my experience coming by them which has been far and few between. They sure are different. Maybe most people wouldn't be excited by them but to me their being Ravenswood is enough. David

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  • 4 weeks later...
  • 4 years later...

I expect I'll pick up on something new everytime I look at this thread, for some time to come.

Thank you so much Alan!

And it still lives. I just revisited this thread for the first time in a very long while, and discovered the gray-based swirls -- which I have two of in my Unknown Box. Moving them tonight!

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  • 4 years later...
  • 2 years later...
On 11/26/2007 at 12:41 AM, PatryD said:

Well, here are some Ravenswoods that you have probably not seen before.

David Chamberlain just saw them for the first time, Oct. 24, '07, when he stopped by here.

These were brought to me in the early '90's by Elaine King.

It is my understanding that these were a special run.

It isn't my plan to sell any of these. These do seem to be rare.

http://christensenagate.com/images/Ravenswood6.jpg

It would be great if someone had a copy of Patry's original pic and could repost it here, since there is a long story behind these marbles, which are now positively identified as Ravenswood, and Patry's were the first ones many of us had seen. Here are a couple of mine for reference.

Ric364.jpg.4f38177345ece197995d817e07d96cfb.jpg

And Kudos again to Alan for providing the community with such an excellent resource. It took a lot of work to put together, for sure, and I for one one really appreciate it - I have for years!

 

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  • 1 year later...

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