Here is one of the most historic art glass marbles you'll ever lay eyes on! This Noble Effort Murrini Sphere is from 1984 (Ro tells me that 0 in the date is actually a 4 that didn't turn out so well, heh). Ro Purser and Richard Marquis teamed up to create Noble Effort in 1982, and soon were making collaboration murrini spheres together, as well as other Noble Effort glass forms. It's amazing seeing the images in this marble, knowing they were all made in the late 70's and early 80's! It's incredible just how far ahead of their time these two marble artists were, when you realize that almost 40 years later, this is still one of the sweetest marbles ever created. When you compare it to murrini spheres from the 2000's, you can see there is a more pastel look to the sphere in general, as Ro and Dick liked to use lighter colors to surround the white images back then. It's cool that the marbles can be distinguished like this. As you study this sphere, you'll see a plethora of really cool images - these guys were rocking it WAAAAAY back in the day!! A LOT of work goes into each one of these images, so they were crazy from the start to attempt such a thing. But Ro will readily tell you that nobody has ever accused him of being sane, ha ha! Some of the murrini is still used by Ro today, but much of it is now long extinct. For example, check out that full United States murrini!! The work that went into just that one murrini is extraordinary, and that's just one of sooo many involved here. The total time behind this piece just boggles the mind. Grab this wildly rare gem while you have a chance, because you will see very few of these come along for sale in your lifetime! A marble like this basically completes a great collection. Signed with copyright sig chip 'c 1984 Noble Effort'.