Steph

Mostly West Virginia swirls. The light blue with the white ribbon is a popular style, if I'm not mistaken.

Before you make a big buy, if you can post a pic, we can give you an idea of if it's old or new.

If you're talking monetary investment, there is literally no basic answer to that. The best advice is "buy what you like". But that's not for investments. Different makers have different marbles which are considered desirable. If you buy a marble book, not even that is good enough to give a new collector a good feel for what is desirable, because to the untrained eye so many modern marbles look like older ones. The easiest thing to comment on is this: Condition is very important. A single nick can reduce the value of a marble by half.

As to value ... some of those are starting to get more collectible. However, still not a lot of value as far as I am aware. Nice to see pix!

Are the marbles in the first picture flattened? If so, they're called "gems". Most of these appear to be modern. Maybe all. Many appear to be from the Vacor de Mexico company. Probably made this century. The third photo down look like they could be Jabos, made in Ohio, between 1991 and 2007.

Another possibility is to try to load them into the gallery. I think that will resize them for you. And another possibility is to load them to Photobucket and post them from there.

On the left we have a Peltier Rainbo -- from the 1930's through the 1960's. Not sure what the marble on the right is. It has the long seams of a Marble King or Vitro or Akro. But I can't place it. No onionskin or watermelon. Watermelon's are red and green. And Onionskins are handmade. These were machine-made.

Hmmm, I'm still not sure what it is. But I think I can rule out the higher dollar single color marbles. As I said, those are rare, so odds were low. Thanks for the extra views. That indentation is a "cold roll". Happens when the glass is just a little less molten than average and doesn't get fully smoothed out on the rollers.

I pm-ed you my email address. I can resize them. I don't know about cell phones -- don't know if they let you adjust resolution in the settings. But I can fix 'em up in Paint and post 'em for you.

Is that a water tower behind the house? Is that any kind of clue?

That is a bullseye china -- another ceramic from Germany from about the same time frame as the Bennington. Again worth having in a collection though not a high dollar marble.

Not seeing value or distinctly identifying marks in these two photos. Few solid color marbles are worth much. But there ARE some which are, so there's a tiny chance that more views of the green one could result in a higher estimate of value. The bottom could be a Jabo, made after 1990, or it could be something else, but none of the possibilities going through my mind carry a high price tag with them.

Hi. Welcome. The bottom looks like some kind of cat's eye. Cat's eyes aren't usually very valuable. (Most worth a nickel or less.) SOME worth more. More views might be able to turn this on into something worth up to a dollar. Not sure with just this side view. Also not sure with just the one view of the green one on top. That is, not sure if it's a mid-1900's American-made marble or a later Asian marble. But it doesn't look like it would be valuable either way.

The brown one with the "eye" is a Bennington. It's an antique ceramic marble from Germany. From the 1800's or early 1900's. Not worth a lot of money, but worth having in a marble collection. (Could possibly be worth a couple of dollars to the right person.) The speckled marble on the bottom right is modern. Made in Mexico or Asia. Probably Mexico. Made later in the 1900's or in this century.

that's a treasure terrific find

Looks rather lustrous in your photo. Aventurine? Pearly?

*sneaking back in* I suppose another choice could be Peltier Prima Agate http://marbleconnection.com/topic/21588-american-agate-or-prima/ *sneaking back out* *no one saw me, right?*

Hmmmm ... I guess I could get talked into thinking the 2nd end was an Akro seam instead of a handgathered cutline. The base looks mossy in this natural light photo. Okay, I'm all over the place here. Obvious I do not know! I'm gonna shut up now. No, really. I am.

That's what I was very vaguely wondering.

The last picture is the "cutline". That's what you'll often see on the opposite side from the "9 and tail". To me the colors in the last photo look sorta Japanese, but cutline is so clean and the spiral is so very nice, it seems too neat to be Japanese. And I don't know what to think about the clear.

http://www.boredpanda.com/alternative-creative-ways-to-use-lego/?page_numb=8&utm_source=CB14&utm_medium=link&utm_campaign=SAW

Hmmm. While I am not a handgathered expert, I know that MFC had a relatively limited number of colors/styles. I just don't see that fitting in with the MFC. Especially with such a bright red shade. I'd still wait for some more input.

@lstmmrbls, you around?