PittsburghMarbles

Some of my Germans. Untitled by Pittsburgh Marbles, on Flickr Untitled by Pittsburgh Marbles, on Flickr Untitled by Pittsburgh Marbles, on Flickr Untitled by Pittsburgh Marbles, on Flickr Untitled by Pittsburgh Marbles, on Flickr Untitled by Pittsburgh Marbles, on Flickr Untitled by Pittsburgh Marbles, on Flickr

Yes Akro patch. When I was first starting I regularly misidentified these too as masters.

None are hardly found in America, you would have to find them in Puerto Rico. They are the only marble co from N America that I have no examples of.

Is there anyway to actually sort of tell what region a handmade marble comes from? Don't know if anyone has really done extensive research. I know some Pittsburgh glass factories where I live made "German" handmade marbles, but I would have no idea how to tell the difference between them and those made in central Germany.

^ holy freaking smokes!

^ Walking creeks and hillsides, looking for glass shards and then find their source.

^ what alley site was that? Ugh sure wish I could have gone to one of these factory digs. Sure would save me lots of money lol

Heres some of my favorite Alleys, some inkys. Untitled by Pittsburgh Marbles, on Flickr And some of my Ravenswoods, dont have too many yet but I sure do love em. Untitled by Pittsburgh Marbles, on Flickr

^ i sure wish I could have dug at Heaton. Now it seems like no marble factory sites will ever be able to be dug again and or they are all already pretty much dug out. I see Ron Shepherd, met the guy a couple of times at marble shows this year. He knows everything about swirls.

What are those called? I use washers, these look like they’d be much better.

It was just a question…

^^ I just found a dump last weekend that had loads of 1870s-1950s bottle shards all over the surface. It’s def been dug in before and probably extensively as nearly everything I found was disturbed but I looked on historic maps at the courthouse and it’s an old town dump around here that dates from the 1860s-1950s (dumps were sometimes known as commons on old maps, that’s how I found it) and it’s almost a mile long according to Sanborn maps from 1898. So I’ll have to poke around as most bottle diggers are only after pre 1910s stuff and usually discard anything post 1920 and since it was used until the 50s and probably early 1960s, there’s gotta be loads of marbles that previous bottle diggers wouldn’t have given two craps about or known to look for. I found a couple really nice pipes and smaller pre 1910 local medicine bottles while I was there and I think I found an undug area after digging about a 30ft test pit but will have to excavate further to make sure. Will bring my siv this weekend when I go back to find marbles too.

I don’t know, there’s many on here way more knowledgeable than me though and maybe they’ll chime in. What part of the world are you in? Would probably help to know where you got these marbles, IE are you in europe, North America, S America etc?

Eh those all look modern to me.

These are similar marble kings that came from a marble king dump that someone I know used to dig at in the 90s that they gave me. They probably date from the late 80s. As you can see, they aren’t the same, just similar.

^ No the marble pictured is def not an Indian blanket.

Man, if I had found that marble in the wild, I woulda guessed it was a later champion... the first one in your set of photos.

Some epic pelts I found at a garage sale from a couple of jars earlier this year, dont think I'll ever get that lucky again. Untitled by Pittsburgh Marbles, on Flickr

How many of you go out and dig for marbles? Ive been digging for bottles for nearly 12 years now, started when I was a sophomore in college after I found a hutchinson bottle in a creek side. Been obsessed with glass ever since. Just started specifically looking for marbles while digging in the past year and a half or so. It takes so much searching along creek banks and public waterways to find dumps. These are just some of the dumps Ive found and have been digging in since the new year. Once Im done, I backfill the dumps to not leave holes and I always find out who the landowner is to get permission; sometimes I don't get it and that really sucks. Anyways, here's some of the dumps I've found since the New Year and some of the finds. Untitled by Pittsburgh Marbles, on Flickr Untitled by Pittsburgh Marbles, on Flickr Untitled by Pittsburgh Marbles, on Flickr Untitled by Pittsburgh Marbles, on Flickr Untitled by Pittsburgh Marbles, on Flickr Untitled by Pittsburgh Marbles, on Flickr Untitled by Pittsburgh Marbles, on Flickr Untitled by Pittsburgh Marbles, on Flickr Untitled by Pittsburgh Marbles, on Flickr Untitled by Pittsburgh Marbles, on Flickr Untitled by Pittsburgh Marbles, on Flickr Untitled by Pittsburgh Marbles, on Flickr Untitled by Pittsburgh Marbles, on Flickr Untitled by Pittsburgh Marbles, on Flickr Untitled by Pittsburgh Marbles, on Flickr I love digging, its like nothing else, finding a marble or a bottle thats been in the ground for 50-160 years and knowing the last person that touched it was someone living during that time period. Most of my marbles I have displayed are jar or marble show buys; as most that come out of the ground are obviously going to be damaged from play or when they burned the town dumps, but occasionally I find an exception undamaged marble, like that akro silver oxblood above and others.

Yeah I guess the third one looks more akro and not vitro now that I looked at it again. Its a nice mib for sure.

^ I have that last one, is there a name for it?

Is there a Kokomo book or anywhere that shows basically most of their marbles. I have 3 for sure Kokomos in my collection but I'm sure I have a few more hiding in my pelts. Other than memorizing every color combo they made its for me, nearly impossible to tell the difference between Kokomo and pelts Rainbos.

Yeah I’d go with alley, it’s a little toO busy to be a Ravenswood in my opinion. Still a very beautiful marble.

1st and 3rd don’t look master to me, look like vitros. The 4th doesn’t look master to me either. Looks like an Akro patch.

I always tell antique stores and dealers to tape their jars shut but allow people to look through them at the front desk. I always take the jars up front and ask to look through them and talk about marbles and stuff to the clerks up front while searching the jars.