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Name A Marble You Own That You Would Never Sell, No Matter What


greg11

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Normally you'd think this would be an impossible question. Heck, I have a number of mibs, like I'm sure many of us here do, I'd hold on to through some real hunger events, fits of destitution before letting it go...and, I think, that's correct and the way it should be. So, I've got a long queue of 'desert island' mibs, for sure, but I guess it's easy this time: The marble I'd sell last was my Father's. He had it in the early 1930's, and it's a terrific NLR Pelt Submarine shooter. After my Dad died, I found a box in the attic that had a small canvas case with burlap bags in it. And in those bags, were slightly over 400 mibs from the time when he was a kid. Many, no most, were in great to good condition and comparatively diverse with lots of different forms and manufacturers...he was a sick kid, so he tended to do things that other kids didn't do...many appeared to be cared for, almost like they were collected.

It was this first collection that gave birth to my collecting of these things...first from wanting to find out what he had, and since turning into this mania, this bottomless passion I have for these wonders in glass. I've learned from all his marbles, and have of course, since moved on...but they remain central, and indeed separate, from the rest of my collection. And he gave me hobby, greater in some ways than all he ever did for me. My Dad is always with me now, in my marbles.

One day I will share with you all what was in his collection...all of them pre-WWII mibs...never played with by me, or known to anyone, and truly unpolluted. It was so amazing to see this group so locked in time...some, as if they'd just walked out of the store or from the playground, and then were locked away for decades, untampered. I know these cases of substantiated unpolluted oldness are rare...but this is one of these cases. We don't know why he never let me play with them when I was young...but luckily, he waited for the adult and kid in me to discover them. And he had them all: Miller Swirls and Red Angels and and other Pelts I've not even seen other examples of ever, and lots of other Pelts (the collection is half or more Pelt), and early Vitros and Akros and Alleys and swirls from the early companies...such a great classroom it was. So there is lots to choose from sure, but this Submarine will easily be, the last mib to go. John

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