Of JOKERS and JABO
By Mike Adams
Can
it only be since June of 2008 that all this has come to pass?
The marble collecting community saw for the first time a successful,
concerted and legitimate effort by motivated individuals to create a modern
machine made marble that would have immediate collectability.
Yes. There are toy marbles
still being made today in the
First and foremost: these are truly beautiful marbles. The quality of the glass,
with liberal use of red, aventurine and oxblood, has resulted in outstanding
combinations of color and pattern.
Even if you do not collect machine made marbles there would be a consensus:
These are not your run of the mill Jabos.
Instead the questions seem to center around:
What are the motivations of those
who commissioned them?
What place do they have in the in
the marble collecting community?
What happens next?
What is a fair price?
Has marble collecting been
changed….for the better?
What are the motivations of those who commissioned them?
I
may be over simplifying this but I believe most of them wanted to make the
marbles just to see what would happen.
And if the marbles turned out half way decent, sell a few to recoup the
investment and make a profit. I’m
sure there were those who just wanted to actually watch the machines run with
molten glass and see, feel, hear, smell the experience.
Who among us wouldn’t? After
all, success was not guaranteed by any means and the initial investment was not
relatively cheap.
What place do they have in the in the marble collecting community?
This
is a question that will take a few years to accurately determine. After all, the
closest event to compare it to was the proliferation of contemporary artists
making handmade marbles one at a time.
Some of these artists languish while others, Mark Matthews chief among
them, have risen to distinction. If
memory serves, this did not happen over night either.
Time as much as the quality of the marbles themselves has determined
which artists are collectible.
What happens next?
With
the initial financial success of the first run, it should come as no surprise
that there have been subsequent runs and will continue to be so until the
initial newness of commissioning and naming your own special run concludes its
course or there is a glut on the market.
Whether at Jabo or somewhere else, someone will attempt to capitalize
while marbles made for pennies continue to fetch dollars.
Maybe it will be with a different combination of colors or materials but
it will happen. The potential for
profit is just too great.
What is a fair price?
This
seems to be one of the cruxes of the discussion.
The obvious answer is; what someone is willing to pay.
These colorful orbs do not have any greater or lesser intrinsic value
than the older German made or early American made marbles do.
Their value lies in what we crazy collectors are willing to pay.
Which brings up an interesting point.
How many times have you seen a marble skyrocket in price literally
overnight because of hype or belief that it is somehow unique?
In twenty five years, I’ve been able to witness it with just about every
machine made type price spike increase.
I’ve also seen those values come crashing down when a marble is not what
we thought it was. Circus
Christensen’s and Leightons come to mind.
Or when someone digs at the plant site. Look
at Marble King. There can be any
number of reasons why a marble falls out of favor.
If
you forget about all the hype of today and objectively look at the historical
track record of enterprises such as this, it is foolish not to have some
concern. These marbles were not made
as toys. Putting a few of the lesser
ones in bags and selling or giving them away will not change that fact.
When the people who set up row upon row of bubble packs at shows dump all
those marbles into bags and sell them at Wal Mart, I’ll change my mind.
Not before.
The
history of items made for the collector market is mixed.
Ertle Precision farm implements have escalated in price while Norman
Rockwell plates go nowhere. Why?
Somewhat due to the quality of the item but it also has to do with the
connectivity that the collector feels when they handle the piece.
Jokers have a great connectivity factor in their eye appeal and being
made in the cradle of marbledom.
Some of their descendants may not.
But
if or when a marble type “cools off” in price, someone will get stuck paying
more than they can sell the marble for.
It’s called the end of a feeding frenzy.
Yes. We hear the purist give
the, “You should collect what you like and not as an investment” argument.
There’s also the, “It’s my money and I’ll spend it how I please.”
While I agree with both concepts, they only go so far.
Most collectors are on a limited budget.
Our spouses wouldn’t have it any other way.
If you feel you are continually over paying for marbles, you will quickly
become frustrated with the hobby and move on to something else.
That’s not to say we all don’t have overpriced marbles in our
collections. We all over pay from
time to time, (ever been to an auction?) but it is when we feel the market is
being manipulated that we feel cheated. Limited
runs have a great potential for manipulation.
Vintage marbles can also experience the same manipulation and have from
time to time. But the manipulation of
vintage marbles is not as easily controlled as it is to control the limited
runs. The volume of the vintage
marble production run isn’t a known quantity by those who might seek to
manipulate the amount of marbles on the market.
With limited runs, it is.
Couple that with the fact that one of the principals in the Joker run is a self
proclaimed non collector.
Personally, I have no problem with that.
More mature collecting categories than ours have had pickers for decades.
We need people who are out there beating the bushes to bring more marbles
into the hobby. If they are not
adding to their personal collections, so much the more opportunity to buy.
But being a non collector exposes your only true motive as profit.
Although irrational when you think about it, on the surface it says that
the person does not care for the health of the hobby.
My response to this statement is, why would someone kill off their source
of income by being greedy? I guess
if the person is only out to make a quick buck and doesn’t care if they kill the
goose that lays the golden eggs, then an argument could be made that they care
not for the hobby and will just move on to selling something else.
One
thing for sure. Money taken in by a
non collector is by definition taken out of the hobby.
There is no true re-investment beyond their inventory.
More on that later.
Then, you come back to the hype.
These marbles were over hyped. They
didn’t need it. They stand on their
own merit. They have the hat trick
of red, oxblood and aventurine.
Again, walk into one of those rooms at a show where they cover the bed and see
what jumps out at you. They would
have been better off without the hype.
A lot of the early buyers were speculators or someone wanting to get an
example before they were all gone
(no one was certain there would be more special runs).
How many times has a new/ old stock find surfaced only to be sucked up by
the collecting community? If you
hesitate, you miss out. Since no one
actually knew initially at first how many there were, it created a bit of a
frenzy. The frenzy is what sent the
prices soaring, not the quality of the marbles.
It
didn’t help when the ones who were hyping the marbles actually became
financially involved in their success.
No matter how good of a person you are, your motives are going to be
challenged under those circumstances.
Everybody at some point “talks up” their marbles to some extent.
But this went beyond that.
Older collectors had questions and cast a doubtful eye toward these “Made for
collector” marbles that were fetching such high prices.
Again, history teaches that anything that rises that fast in price is a
bubble waiting burst. The proof is
in the results for the “made for collector” markets.
(Got any Beanie Babies at home?)
The
shrill defense of the Jokers and those involved in making them only cast greater
doubt. Then the whole conversation
about them disintegrated. When
arguments made in a discussion pivot on the King’s English to make a point, you
have become truly lost. It’s not
about marbles anymore. And the other
person knows it.
So,
motives were challenged from trying to drive the price down, to dismissing
people who actually really like these marbles, to envy at not being included
from the start. Then came the
counter accusations that people were just in it for the money, to manipulation
of the market, to shill bidding on E bay.
Let me say that some of the lesser of these accusations are probably true
for some people on some level. But it became a back and forth argument rather
than the “If you don’t want them, walk away.”
And that takes us to the last point.
Has marble collecting been changed….for the better?
Has
it been changed? I believe it
has. Just as when the contemporary
hand mades were first introduced, there was a lot of concern.
And back then, there was no Internet like today.
Conversations took place face to face or on the telephone.
You didn’t have the scrums that take place in the chat rooms.
There’s a new category that is akin to the contemporary hand made.
(those weren’t made to be played with either.)
but, with all due respect to David McCullough, it does not rise to the
artistry of a Mark Matthews marble.
Or rarity for that matter. These
runs seem to be more commemorative in nature than anything else.
They all have names. Even sub
family names for each run. You would
think the names have trademark infringement rights by the reactions of some.
Named marbles “always” sell for more. Right?
What other motive besides profit drives that type of behavior?
Guess what? Names get reused.
You don’t have to look any farther than Akro Agate and Peltier Supermen
to understand that, although confusing for the beginning collector, the same
name sometimes gets used for different marbles.
And nobody dies from it happening either.
The
people associated with the run now seem as important as the run itself.
Add in the relatively large amount of investment/profit on the line and
the faux prestige that is affixed to “being there when the marbles are being
made“, and it tends to get personal.
Although there is great enthusiasm among the principals each time there is a
gathering at Jabo for a run, the novelty for those on the sidelines has worn
off. From the outside, it looks like
a bunch of folks getting together to have a good time.
I’m sure it is. But so is a
trip to the beach. It is starting to
appear to be like buying your ticket (whatever the buy in price to attend a run
is these days) in order to have the experience (being there when marbles are
actually being made) and getting a
few marbles to take home (like picking up seashells off the beach) as souvenirs
of your experience. This should not
be construed in any way as minimizing the experience for those who attend the
runs. I love to go to the beach.
I
might say here that there can be a bit of elitism that is unintentionally
projected since most marble collectors aren’t invited to attend the runs or
don’t have the funds or the connections to participate.
Some of the principals may see this as jealously but there has been a
fair amount of arrogance shown by some attendees as well.
Not by all parties to be sure, but enough that it turns off some people.
With the future runs stacked like box cars, you can understand how some
grow tired of hearing how great it was to be there.
It probably is great to be there but some people don’t want to
necessarily hear how “great it was” and “these are the best yet” for the
twentieth odd time…and counting.
There are those who are genuinely concerned that the hobby is being manipulated
and inexperienced collectors may be getting the worst of it.
That can have long term consequences for all of us.
If new collectors drop out due to the impression that they re being
manipulated, there is no one to replace collectors who leave the hobby for one
reason or another. Especially the
low end to mid market collectors.
The
difficult part in all this is you can’t predict the price will fall anymore than
you can believe the claims of some that these marbles will only go up in price.
If you could, Wall Street is the place for you, not marbles.
I do
believe that they divert a beginning collector’s funds from the low end vintage
and antique marbles. I was a
beginner at one time and had very limited funds.
But I can assure you I tried to get the best value for every extra dollar
I had. You may believe that it is
sour grapes, but I can understand why dealer/collectors who have low end marbles
to sell are a bit miffed by these special runs.
It really is no different than what the rise of collecting machine mades
did to low end hand mades. They are
competing on the most part for the same collector dollar and let’s face it,
funds are tight.
This
also has an unintended detrimental effect on shows.
The majority of money taken in at shows by these marbles does not find
its way back into the market. If
this continues, you will see fewer low end or part time dealer/collectors set up
if there are not buyers for their marbles.
There is a finite amount of money at a show and if it does not continue
to circulate, the bottom feeders will be the first to drop out.
These people are really the heart and soul of any show.
That may not matter to the Internet crowd but it is very upsetting if you
like the shows. Marble shows have
always been about more than marbles.
Just stay up late at night and trade stories in someone’s room.
But the core of a show is being able to find marbles to add to your
collection. If people on a limited
budget drop out because they can‘t sell enough to make expenses and buy a few
new pieces, it makes it all the more difficult for shows to survive.
If the focus of a show is contemporaries and commemoratives, well…. just
stop by an antique mall near you that has allowed in non antiques and you can
guess the rest.
It
seems unfair to say that those who don’t care for the special run Jabos are
trying to drive their price down. I
have Mark Matthews marbles. I don’t
collect them. Same is true for these
new Jabo marbles. There are a number
of sub categories in marbles that I don’t actively collect.
I’m not trying to drive the price of them down.
I would just rather have other marbles.
So, not actively supporting the Jokers and their descendants does not
mean you automatically have an agenda.
Some people collect because of the association to their childhood or the
fact that marbles have a history as toys.
Some collect because of the intricate and boundless color/pattern
combinations they come in. Some
collect just because they are round.
We should all understand that what we see in them may not be what others see.
And just leave it at that.
These Jabos will develop into their own sub category and the prices will
eventually stabilize.
If
you go out on E bay this seems to already be underway.
These marbles have started to show a “leveling out” of prices.
The more attractive ones still command top dollar as they probably
should, but the more common ones are coming down in price.
Again, it’s the good ole American free market system - supply and demand.
So,
will all this change the hobby for the better?
Well, it certainly has generated a lot of talk among collectors.
And when that has remained civil, I believe it is positive.
I have met new collectors who are excited about the Jokers, et al.
That’s good too. But I don’t
buy the argument that beginners can start out with these and graduate to the
vintage marbles someday. History
doesn’t support it either. I am a
generalist marble collector and I can tell you I am in a distinct minority.
Most collectors are specialist even down to a certain company or marble
type. You see very few collectors
shift from, say machine mades to hand mades. While they may have examples, they
don’t actively collect other sub categories.
Where I believe the hobby has suffered are the toxic discussions that become
personal. I have first hand
witnessed damaged relationships between long time friends.
People whose friendship extends beyond marbles.
I can’t see how that’s positive.
I can’t say to them “Just get over it.” either.
Maybe the Internet isn’t such a good thing if people cannot find a way to
remain civil when they disagree.
My
approach to this hobby is that it should be fun.
It’s hard to have fun when you are feeling disrespected.
Respect means not having to defend a phantom motive someone has affixed
to you. Pro or con.
If you respect that others may disagree.
If you accept that for short periods of time there will be fads that, by
definition, run their course. If you
find from time to time you are in the minority and not try to defend every point
as if it is your last. Then this is
fun.