Swissmarble

Thank you, really interesting ! So the opaques are more or less worthless ? But these are not all American machine mades, are they ?

and here are the translucent ones. Anything special ?? Thank you very much for your help ! Ron

OK, I got the bunch. Even as a handmade-collector I have to admit that some of these machine-mades are really pretty !!! But I have no clue if some of these are special or not. So I am looking for some advice. I took some pictures of the ones I think look special, a group of opaques and a group of translucent. Here are the opaque pics:

Hi folks I put more than 80 handmades on ebay, there is even a very old one Roman mosaic marble in the group. http://www.ebay.com/sch/marbleconnoisseur/m.html?item=281839768454&hash=item419ef59386%3Ag%3AmjQAAOSwFnFWDuUo&rt=nc&_trksid=p2047675.l2562 Thanks for looking ! Ron

Very beautiful group, Winnie. Just got another one in today's mail which is VERY English

Hi Ann I assume that these marbles were made between the world wars. It is obvious that more of these brightful marbles were (are) found in Europe than in the USA. I found most of mine in Germany, some in England and some even in France. Perhaps one of the famous paperweight-factories (Limoges ?) in France made some of these then, who knows ? Ron

Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious

And here are some swirls. I am not sure if they all "qualify" for "English colored", but all are quite bright:

Hi Steph I promised you to send some other pics with English colored marbles: Here are some Josephs Coats:

Well, "wet mint" is overexaggerated. A lot of them are polished and others are far less than "wet mint". But he buys and sells a lot of marbles, he bought about 30 to 40 marbles from some my auctions too. Busy guy. But he is reliable. Ron

Hi Winnie That's good to know, thank you very much for your help ! Ron

Hi folks I need your help. I am not a machine-made collector but I often get offered machine-made marbles from Germany. Usually it is just the usual worthless stuff like cateyes, clearies and opaques. But now somebody offered this bunch of marbles (see pic). Some of these marbles look quite unusual and definately older than the common ones. My guess is that these were made in the 50ies. I know that most of you don't care much about older machine mades from outside the US, but perhaps someone could enlighten me if I should buy this bunch or not ? I could get it for about $ 20.00 I guess. Thanks a lot Ron

Yes, nice displays are not easy to find. I have some wooden ones with a mirror back, I think they were made about 50 or 60 years ago. They are quite small but look nice with marbles in. And a few years ago I found this gorgeous display on a flea market. It was made for a chocolate store to display some of their special chocolate pieces. It is not old, but looks fantastic and even has a light inside. It is extremely elaborated with all these gold ropes inside. I keep my onionskins in that display. I wish I would find some others like this, it is just beautiful. Ron

Thank you, Mattshaw. I should do a new video once including the new ones I got. I like to take them out and arrange them for photos and videos, it is somehow boring to just have them in the display case. How do you display your marbles, also in display cases ?

Bulgaria is not really known for its glass-making industry. And I really don't believe their story about the 50/60ies circus marbles. When they started to sell on Ebay about 3 years ago the marbles were more or less flawless (which would be rather unlikely for marbles being put together in a bag and carried around from town to town). Now they obviously improved to make their marbles look "older". But I am more than sure they are produced nowadays. And if they were able to produce beautiful marbles (like mine) decades ago why would they produce such "crap"-marbles today ? The EOD marbles above are at least 5 years in my possession. Why wouldn't they have flooded the market then already ? No offense, just some thoughts. PS: Just checked: the 2nd edition book by Everett Grist where my marble is pictured on the frontpage was published in 2000. So the Bulgarians would have to fool marble experts like E. Grist and later Marblealan and then wait for another 12 year to suddenly flood the market with their "circus"-marbles. This just doesn't make sense...

It doesn't matter to me personally if they were made 1880 or 1930 because I consider this as one era: the era of old handmade glass marbles. So all marbles from that time period are quite old if not antique (if you use the term "antique" only for items that are older than 100 years) and survived at least World War II. So many of these marbles could probably tell an interesting story I really like marbles with vibrant colors.

It is THIS picure you are referring too, isn't it ? That is MY marble on the picture (and also on the Everett Grist book). As far as I know Marblealan sold the marbles in this lot individually as a comission and that is when I bought that specific marble. But I understand that you would have some doubts to bid on such uncommon marbles on Ebay (but I bet you would have trusted Marblealan^s opinion, wouldn't you ?). Well, and our "Bulgarian friends" don't help to bid on uncommon marbles with more confidence. The good thing is that there are almost no polished or faked marbles (except the few obviously faked sulphides I mentioned earlier) on the market here in Europe because there is virtually no market at all. So if you come across a lot of old marbles you can be pretty sure they are all genuine. All these fakes were definately made for the US market where most of the buyers are. And therefore I am sure these marbles are old. My guess is that some of these were made between World War I and World War II because it seems that not many of these were exported to the USA. And the competition with the US machine-made marbles was really hard then, so this might explain why they tried out special designs and use brighter colors (I believe that all the bright "English"-colored swirls were made in that time period). But of course this is just speculation. Ron

They came from totally different sources: - The large blue one was sold by Marblealan about 6 years ago - The red (with white loop) I purchased about 5 years ago from an antique dealer here in Switzerland together with a bunch of other handmade swirls (he doesn't know much about marbles and found them all together in a thrift store) - The blue/red and the red/white/yellow one I bought and a flea market together with many swirls about 5 years ago - And the colorful one I bought on Ebay Germany about 4 years ago together with about 20 other antique marbles About the colors: Difficult to say, to me they all look about the same, but I am not very good in seeing such small color-differences. I know two collectors from the Netherlands (I think they are both in this forum too) who have more or less similar marbles.

OK, here is a pic of the pontils and some detailled pics of the colorful end-of-day marbles which show its surface. It has very little damage and some small surface flaws from the making. Ron

Yes, they have light wear and pontils and if I have time I will make some pictures later. But perhaps this pic will be proof enough ? At least for that marble ? Ron

No, it is old. I have some nice single pontil end-of-day marbles and this is one of them.

Yes, could be. And nobody would complain if they were listed as "contemporary" and not as "antique". But their fakes get better and better and possibly there comes a time when you can't tell the difference between an old marble and their marbles anymore just from a picture. Have a look at this marble. It is one of my nicest marbles, a beautiful single pontil end-of-day marble for which I paid more than $ 1'000.00 a few years ago. I am pretty sure that a lot of people would assume it is a fake marble from Bulgaria when I would try to sell it on ebay. And eventually this will affect the value of most old marbles and will keep away potential new collectors from this hobby. And this would affect prices even more. My two cents. Ron

great, thank you !!

Well, for the beginning I got a treat-message from the German seller who sold these faked sulphides lately..... But the auction is still running and has already been visit by 137 people, so the information spreads. I wish some people would share my postings on facebook... Ron

Hi Hoody Hey, you are from Germany ? Great, there aren't many collectors around from Europe. About my homepage. I would like to put on some more information in English first because I will promote it here and other places. Ron