Steph Posted June 29, 2013 Report Share Posted June 29, 2013 I have a giant clay marble -- about an inch and a half -- and I keep wondering what it would have been used for. Giant glass marbles could be for decoration or pump valve balls or furniture. What would a big purple clay marble have been for? It's not decorative. Clay marbles were used for drainage in highways I think (maybe?) but would they have been colored first for that? Not that I know what size would have been used for highways .... Any thoughts would be appreciated. Thanks! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lstmmrbls Posted June 29, 2013 Report Share Posted June 29, 2013 We never even used the boulders for anything other than throwing at stuff. I think decoration of some sort for the larger marbles is a good guess. i have a bunch of two marbles bags(the largest Vacor types) marketed by Tootsietoy and have no idea what a child would have done with them. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Steph Posted June 30, 2013 Author Report Share Posted June 30, 2013 Well that big clay doesn't seem very pretty to me. It's an overgrown commie. Somewhere I have/had an article from early in the 1900's which said that all the kids had a giant marble for some sort of game. At least that's what I remember -- I hope I didn't just make it up. But I have no idea where I stored it. It's possible I filed it in a "Shooter" folder which was in a folder called "S". I accidentally destroyed my "S" disk, so I may have lost that article. ... or maybe it's in an unsorted folder and I could find it again if I would just look. I'd have fun looking through those old files, finding things I'd forgotten about. Why don't I do it? lol Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BobBlock Posted June 30, 2013 Report Share Posted June 30, 2013 Talking to some old timers years ago, they said that big marbles (boulders) were used as the target to shoot at with the regular marbles. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
spara50 Posted July 1, 2013 Report Share Posted July 1, 2013 I have seen somewhere a picture or description of kids that would pile marbles in the middle of a small circle and drop the large ones down on them from above while standing over them, arm held up high, trying to knock them out. This may be why some of the big marbles are so beat up. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
I'llhavethat1 Posted July 2, 2013 Report Share Posted July 2, 2013 Could have been a jack/target, like bocce ball Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Poplarhead Posted July 4, 2013 Report Share Posted July 4, 2013 A few years back I bought a set of 21 of these large clays (Akrons?) and two homemade target boxes into which you could roll the balls.Still have 18 of clays as a fellow collector wanted one of each for his collection. Paid a princley sum of less than $20 as I recall on a last minute Ebay auction. Don Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Poplarhead Posted July 4, 2013 Report Share Posted July 4, 2013 http://<a href="http://s606.photobucket.com/user/poplarhead/media/MVC-015F-4.jpg.html" target="_blank"><img src="http://i606.photobucket.com/albums/tt144/poplarhead/MVC-015F-4.jpg" border="0" alt=" photo MVC-015F-4.jpg"/></a> Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Poplarhead Posted July 4, 2013 Report Share Posted July 4, 2013 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
William Marbles Posted July 4, 2013 Report Share Posted July 4, 2013 Early Valcor Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lstmmrbls Posted July 5, 2013 Report Share Posted July 5, 2013 William, what makes you think that is a Vacor marble. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
William Marbles Posted July 5, 2013 Report Share Posted July 5, 2013 I had posted this marble awhile back...I think here. But anyway this was the info I got about it. Is it wrong? I know people that come over and look at my stuff, usually; most of the time, this is the first one they pick up. ??? It's clay and seems to have had some care in the making of it. ***EDIT*** Mine's 6.25oz. via kitchen scale ***EDIT*** Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
winnie Posted July 5, 2013 Report Share Posted July 5, 2013 Maybe Steph's marble is also a clay Vacor? Here are 2 Vacors--blue/white is stone and 2 potteries. Here the children don't play with the large ones,they just collect them,the bigger the better. The largest is 2 inch. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Steph Posted July 5, 2013 Author Report Share Posted July 5, 2013 I am pretty sure mine is not a Vacor. I'll try to get a pic. When I saw it though, I immediately thought back to the time Bill posted the huge clay for ID. I wasn't happy how that ID thread was left. I wasn't sure his was a Vacor to begin with. That was just something I was thinking of. However, if it was a Vacor, my thought was that it was made around the year 2000. That's when the stoney Vacors that I'm familiar with were made. The story which came with Bill's marble suggested that it was older though. I know that Vacor made clays when they started out in the 1930's. However, I would imagine those looked more like commies than like the recent version. I don't know though. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Steph Posted July 5, 2013 Author Report Share Posted July 5, 2013 Here's the most worn side of my big 'un up against some 21st century Vacors. The Vacors have a heavier feel and I think a little colder. The small ones are not strictly heaver than the large one. I confirmed that on my postal scale. But I think I verified that they're significantly more dense. Together the 2 smaller ones weigh a little more than .9 ounce. The large one comes in at a little over 2.2 ounces. (I conclude the "little over" part because the three marbles together came out to be 3.2 ounces.) The smaller ones are 19 mm wide. The big one is between 37 and 38 mm wide. (Can't be more precise because it's a little out of round and just a tad too big for my caliper's grips.) Sooooo .... if I did my math right, then the small ones together have about 1/4 of the volume of the big one. But the weight of the small ones together is about 40% of the weight of the big one. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lstmmrbls Posted July 5, 2013 Report Share Posted July 5, 2013 Vacors early marbles were fairly rough and made for playing classic marble games. That marble just does not strike me as a Vacor product. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
winnie Posted July 5, 2013 Report Share Posted July 5, 2013 Steph, ýours looks a bit like this one,mine is 1.2/8. I found them here in old groups.( it's 302 years old LOL) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Steph Posted July 5, 2013 Author Report Share Posted July 5, 2013 302?! Wow! .... or should that LOL and the extra 2 years on the end let me know there's a joke there somewhere? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
winnie Posted July 5, 2013 Report Share Posted July 5, 2013 You got it. I've no clue how old they are. I've found quite a lot of them here,read somewhere that they are called Gresmarbles and have been made in Netherland. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Steph Posted July 5, 2013 Author Report Share Posted July 5, 2013 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
William Marbles Posted September 26, 2013 Report Share Posted September 26, 2013 Hello Everyone! Well I just got my newest vintage 2" Clay marble today in the mail. Very cool. Here's a picture of it next to my 2 1/4" Wow. I really like both of them. Enjoy!!!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Steph Posted September 26, 2013 Author Report Share Posted September 26, 2013 Monster! Were plain clay marbles used for carpet bowling? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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