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Not The Usual Suspects -- How Many Countries Have Had Marble Making Operations ....


Steph

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How many countries do you think have at least one marble-making machine for fiber glass ingots or other industrial purpose?

... and Italy ... do we ever hear about marbles having been made there? They're famous for glassware ... but no marbles?

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I'll stick my neck out a little.

Egypt, Rome (Southern Italy), modern Italy, Czechoslovakia, Germany, England, Japan, China, Mexico, USA, and??

I would think most modern countries have machines to make glass spheres of some sort?

:character-smileys-238: oops, you did say marble machine.... I don't think the Egyptians or Romans had them. I give up :white-flag-25:

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Do you have the book American Machine-Made Marbles?

It has a chapter on a company called Libbey Owens Ford. Says some of the rough greenish marbles found by railroad tracks came from there. They leaked from the railroad cars transporting them. They're the raw material for fiber glass. Formed as spheres because they move more easily down conveyor belts that way.

I'm not sure why that one particular factory made it into the book -- probably because it has a Vitro connection -- but I'm pretty sure it was one of many which had machines for that purpose.

Edit to add: here's a fiberglass marble which MarbleBert auctioned. From the 1939 World's Fair.

post-279-1203712207_thumb.jpg post-279-1203712236_thumb.jpg

Pretty sure other folks had marble making machines for creating lithography balls for printing -- if I'm saying that right.

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"It has a chapter on a company called Libbey Owens Ford. Says some of the rough greenish marbles found by railroad tracks came from there. They leaked from the railroad cars transporting them. They're the raw material for fiber glass. Formed as spheres because they move more easily down conveyor belts that way."

they should be in every collection . I heard they were also used in bombs ? Mike

http://www.ebay.com/itm/110958156582?_trksid=p2055119.m1438.l2649&ssPageName=STRK%3AMEBIDX%3AIT

I found a lot back when I first got into marbles they were used in a fish bowl and worked a long time cleaning till I found out tey were all over the place . still have as I use they to relpace marbles sol;d at shows just to fill in empty areas .

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