AvvaRae

10 hours ago, Tommy said:

Agree with Chad...bring it on...lol

😂 Okay I'll be bringing it then lol ... 

35 minutes ago, Chad G. said:

"Thank You" for your patience, you'll have a hundred posts before ya know it  

I'm sure I will I only hope I don't annoy everyone with my 500 questions lol... I did purchase some books off a recommendation list to help myself with identification 🙂. 

10 minutes ago, Chad G. said:

The "Buy & Sell" forum will appear for you after 100 post's, A little safety clause for members. There is also a donation link on the right hand side of your screen if you wish to donate that way. Sorry for the inconvenience on the buy and sell but we had some problems in the past.

No worries I understand. Thank you for letting me know 😊 I'll be patient hehe 

On 7/22/2023 at 11:12 PM, rockgardenplants said:

Does anyone recognize the initials RDH and this style of contemporary?

Very beautiful marble 

🤔Does anyone in our group sell? I'd love to support our group vs someone random🫣😊. If there is already a thread for this I apologize. And if this isn't allowed just say the word and I'll zip my lips hehe 🤐

(I do have a good source for an upcoming auction/you may already know about it 🤷🏻‍♀️) they ship btw

Ps. Anyone else get their kiddos hooked on marbles too? My littlest guy here for this marble run for his birthday... He's obsessed 🤣.. 

6 hours ago, Nantucketdink said:

I still think breaking open spray paint cans is the craziest way to get them.  Hunting for really old spray paint cans just for the marbles is a whole nother level of dedication.  Hazardous material day at the dump is a weird thing to get excited about 

Haha that's really cool and definitely outside of the box!!! Ever find any cool ones? 

7 hours ago, Linda Gail said:

We sure are dedicated. We have even gotten some from Chesapeake Ohio. They sure are getting harder to find though. CharlieT and I are gonna branch out to other areas soon. We also collect uranium glass which they are super cool. 

So fun!!!! That's on my bucket list to find they look beautiful!!! Especially under the black light

8 hours ago, Jeff54 said:

3 story, 1880's home we bought around 1990 and sold 2005. While rewiring 3rd floor that was originally an attic; In-between outside wall, above ceiling of 2nd floor, 3-4 5/8" German Cane cut micas were sitting where they had rolled off and into, 100 year prior. They were the very  1st micas I'd found.

Wow that's an incredible way to find some marbles hehe 

On 11/19/2022 at 4:59 PM, browncat73 said:

I lucked up on this a few days ago on a blind auction bid for a small box with mostly junk for ten bucks. The game was complete including the Mibs. It looks like the company was based out of NJ and sourced their MiBs from Christensen. They look like a mix of moons, white swirls and light blue swirls. The game is in incredible shape I can't believe it for how old it is.

This looks so fun!!! I wanna play lol. What a score!!!!

4 hours ago, Chad G. said:

Speaking of carrots, ones to many and a thousand never, enough ....    

Feels that way we😂 I find myself searching the internet scouring... I have a whole ebay wishlist already lol 🤣

13 hours ago, Melissa said:

Welcome to the marble rabbit hole! 

Thank you hehe 😊

22 hours ago, Steph said:

It's easy to fall in love with marbles.

P.s., I used to collect antique books also.    I still have many.  

So fun!!! Have a favorite author or title?

3 hours ago, Linda Gail said:

The longest me and CharlieT have traveled was from Milton West Virginia to Morehead Kentucky. We been collecting for 3 years now. We are always searching. We love the hunt. 

Dang that is some dedication!!!! Beautiful photo of your trio hehe 

4 hours ago, akroorka said:

This is my craziest way. 
These are from my vegetable garden.
We are in a drought here where I live but I still find a few. 
Just like the crops—slim Pickens this year so far.
Marble—On!!
 

That's so wild and fun lol!!!! I have a garden too, it's been a terrible season being so close to the smoke from the fires . No sun = small crops.. Id love to dig up some marbles though instead of potatoes 😂😂😂

5 hours ago, Chad G. said:

Sent some mibs to a good marble friend in the Netherlands. Instead of going from WA. State to the East coast International sorting facility & across the Atlantic. They went to the CA. sorting facility and across the Pacific instead. So instead of around 5500 miles it turned out to be around 15 0r 20,000 a trip around the would the wrong way over Thailand and Iran to get there and almost a month and a half. Talk about a nail biter !!!

Wow, that's nuts!!! Total nail biter I would have thought they were lost... That's awesome they still got there though hehe 

I'm Avva from Pennsylvania. 

I am so new to Marbles I am not even sure I could call myself a collector. 🤷🏻‍♀️

🫣I recently like within the last month I was at an auction picking up items when I went to view the next lot I saw jar of marbles and thought to myself how fun... and a few estate sales and auctions later and....

Well here I am, I opened that first jar and was just fascinated at how intricate some of them were... And that just sparked so much interest. 

So, 🤓I was searching YouTube (I found Stephen's Videos) and thought there has to be more I can read/see and here I am. 

Ready/Eager to learn and soak everything up 🙃😁

Outside of marbles I love collecting antique books, I love the smell, the way the pages sound when you flip them lol and just getting into the minds of society or an author is exciting to me. 

I also love collecting Minerals/Crystals 😍. Natural beauty from the earth is fascinating to me (maybe because I am Indigenous or maybe just because the earth is wondrous and beautiful. 

*I love sitting and trying to sort them out/figure out what they are lol..  it's half the fun for me atm 

I'm Avva and I have no idea what my preference is yet because I am so new to this but I am really enjoying the journey and the community so far 😁

14 minutes ago, Fire1981 said:

Your first 4 a really nice Pelt Cats Eyes. Call them bananas if you want 🔥

RAR

Oh nice, I wasn't sure if I could call them that because there was only one streak, is there a certain year they did this or that was common? My other cats eyes have 4 or more ribbon type streaks inside (I'm guessing that is more common?)

I thought it would be fun to share stories of the longest distance you traveled for a marble/s or the craziest way you acquired one 🙃🤓

I have no idea exactly yet how to identify but it's one sweet looking marble

Hi it's Avva again 🥰

✌️So some questions here because I am still so new and learning 

What do you call or how would I identify these banana looking marbles? 🤔

🤓🙃The next set look white but in further photos down almost have a greenish hue to them, in looking at @Steph notations I am finding it hard to identify them any help would be greatly appreciated 

The third blue photo, how do I find seems on a marble like this? Or would th ribbon effect be how I would identify? Also what would make a marble flatfish on one side? 

The red and white were so super fun, I know they aren't peppermint swirls but they definitely remind me of peppermint candy... Any help in identifying these would be great 😁🤗

The last set remind me of bumblebee jasper if anyone in here also appreciates crystals, minerals etc... 

All and any help is so greatly appreciated, you all made me feel so welcome yesterday. I'm excited to have found this great resource of people knowledge and beautiful marbles 🥰🥰🥰 I look at some of the photos and just think wow!!! I wonder where most of you found your collections? 🫣 I started this journey with estate sales... And it seems to be a fun way for me to collect though wow ebay has many beauties.. I just find great thrill in the unknown what if lots lol.. anywho 

Thanks for reading my Ted talk 😊

On 6/9/2007 at 10:54 PM, Steph said:

Transcribed text:

 

Marbles and Where They Come From

Is there a wide-awake boy, a boy who goes to school, and knows how to enjoy himself during play-time as well as how to study hard during study hours, that does not know all about "fen dubs," "fen h'isting," "fen bunching"? If there is such a boy, he has missed a great deal of fun in never having learned and used these mystical sayings; and when perhaps he becomes a father or a grandfather he will lose much pleasure in not being able to take a hand in with the youngsters, and tell how he played marbles when he was a boy.

Although it is many and many years since I wore the skin off my knuckles and my trousers out at the knees, and flattered myself that I knew all about marbles, it was not until recently, when talking with the wholesale dealer in marbles, that I had to acknowledge that there was still very much to be learned on the subject that is interesting and new.

I was told that in ancient times, away back before the Christian era, games were played with marbles, not the beautiful round, smooth, and polished ones of the present day, but with round sea-worn stones and pebbles; also that marbles are frequently met with in the ruins of old cities, and among the other wonderful relics found in the buried city of Pompeii.

As to which particular nation or people first manufactured stone and glass marbles nothing is known. About the first mention we have of them is that they were introduced into England from Holland as early as 1620. This being the case, the boys have our early Dutch settlers to thank for the first introduction of marbles to this country, as it is not at all probably that the stern Pilgrims would encourage the playing of games with round stones.

All the dealers in marbles--and I have talked with very many of them--tell me that the entire stock of marbles for the American market comes from Germany, and that the prices paid for manufacturing them are so low that no American laborer would or could live on such wages. A great deal of the work, such as moulding and painting, is performed by poor little children.

I shall never again watch a lot of happy, intelligent, bright, well-fed, and well-clothed American boys playing at marbles but I shall think of the poorly clad German children munching away on a piece of black bread (for that is all they get to eat) as they work on their weary tasks for a few cents a week. Poor little things! it is no wonder they love America, and wish they were human marbles and could roll over here.

The common gray marble is made of hard stone found near Coburg, in Saxony. This stone is first broken with a hammer into small square fragments. From 100 to 200 of these are ground at one time in a mill which resembles a flour mill. The lower stone remains at rest, and is provided with several concentric circular grooves or furrows. The upper stone is of the same size as the lower, but revolves by means of water-power. The pressure of the "runner" (the upper stone) on the pieces rolls them over in all directions, until in about a quarter of an hour they are reduced to nearly perfect spheres.

An establishment of three such mills can turn out over sixty thousand marbles a week. This operation is for the coarser kinds of stone marbles. In making the finer grades they are afterward place in revolving wooden casks in which are cylinders of hard stone, and the marbles, by constantly rubbing against one another and against the stone cylinders, become very smooth. To give them a high polish the dust formed in the last operation is taken out of the cask, which is then charged with fine emery powder. The very highest and last grade of polish is effected with "putty powder." Marbles thus produced are known to the trade as "polished gray marbles." They also are stained different colors, and are then known as "colored marbles," and are sold by the New York wholesale dealers at from seventy to eighty cents per thousand.

What the maker receives for them I leave you to imagine, for the German wholesale dealer must obtain his profit, then comes the cost of sending them to this country, and the Custom-house duty, and a profit for the American dealer who disposes of them at eighty cents per thousand. As there are twenty to twenty-five lines or varieties of German marbles, it is not to be wondered at that they hold their own against even the labor and time saving machinery of America.

After the small gray marbles come the largest-sized marbles, or bowlers, now known as "bosses" by the New York boys. These are one and a quarter inches in diameter, and cost from $6 to $7 per thousand. The next grade of marbles includes the "china alleys," "burnt agates," "glass agates," and "jaspers," though with the trade these are all called marbles. China alleys are painted in fine circles of various colors, or in small broad rings, in which case they are known as "bull's-eyes." Some of these are pressed in wooden moulds, after which they are painted and baked. These cost from 50 cents to $7.50 per thousand, according to the size. The better and more highly finished alleys are made of china, carefully moulded, painted, and fire-glazed. These cost from $2.75 to $15 per thousand, the largest being an inch and a half in diameter. Our illustrations in every case show the marbles full size.

Next come the jaspers, or, as the boys call them, "Croton alleys," consisting of glazed and unglazed white china handsomely marbled with blue. The "burnt agates" are also china and highly glazed; in color they are a mixture of dark and light brown with splashes of white; when green is introduced with the above colors they are known as "moss agates"; by the dealers they are known as "imitation agates." The prices of these range from $2 75 to $7 50 per thousand. Then comes a very large and beautiful class of alleys known as "glass marbles." These range in size from two inches in diameter down to the small "peawees," and are of every conceivable combination of colored glass. Some contain figures of animals and birds, and are known as "glass figure marbles." These are pressed in polished metal moulds the parts of which fit so closely together that not the slightest trace of them is to be seen on the alleys, which is not the case with most of the pressed china alleys, for if one looks over a number of them sharply he will detect a small ridge encircling some of them. The "opals," "glimmers," "blood," "ruby," "spangled," "figured," and imitation carnelian all come in this class, and are all very beautiful.

Now come the most beautiful and expensive of all marbles -- the true agates and true carnelians. These are gems, and are quoted as high as $45 per gross wholesale for the largest sizes. They are of the most exquisite combinations of colors in grays and reds, and are all highly polished by hand on lapidaries' wheels. Last and least in size are the "peawees" or "pony" alleys and marbles. They are comical little chaps no larger than a good-sized marrowfat pea. Of late years gilded and silvered marbles have been introduced, also a style speckled with various colored paints, which are called "birds' eggs."

When playing marbles it is well to provide one's self with a pad on which to kneel, thereby avoiding all soiling and wearing out of the knees of one's pants. A rest for the hand when "knuckling down," consisting of a piece of the fur of any animal, will be found very convenient when playing on coarse sandy soils.

Loved reading this ty 

Thank you so much for your help. I really appreciate it 😌 

On 2/23/2009 at 4:16 PM, Steph said:

1911 - 1914, the Akron era. Akro started by jobbering MFCs.

The earliest known Akro box,  the mailer the box came in, plus an early Akro ad.

 

More/larger views:

https://i.imgur.com/rImKLBb.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/FRnoL6D.jpg

Not sure the source of the above ad.  Basically the same ad could be found in different publications.

Here's a series of ads George Sourlis sent dated from 1911 to 1915. (No similar one found for 1914 yet.)  
 

Beautiful Collection and very cool that it's in it's original box!!! So fun ☺️

Ps. How do you tell an Akron solid? I have very similar green ones.

2 hours ago, Linda Gail said:

Wow that's a nice one for sure 

Agreed