Need Some Help

[Matthew Milburn]

Hey guys, new here.  I'll start off by saying I own an antique store.  I run across marbles a good bit, but avoid most all of them because I know nothing about them.  That was until a few days ago when I acquired a handful of them picking from a former hoarders estate.  It was the first time marbles ever really spoke to me.  They were like none I had ever really seen before.  And I was wondering if you guys could help me Id any of them.  One looks shattered, most the rest look pretty used, but cool looking.   Any help would be greatly appreciated.  I saw a few other posts asking for measurements, what do you guys use to measure them?  I'd like to learn a bit about the hobby to help fine tune my picking ability.  Thanks, Matthew

[Steph]

Measurements are done with calipers.  General advice is to avoid metal calipers, to protect the glass from scratches.

Your bird is a "sulphide".  It is a handmade marble made in Germany in the 1800's or early 1900's.

The next two marbles are also handmades, from Germany, from that time range.  I'm no good with giving the names of handmade styles. They can get very technical. The one that's not cracked might be a "divided ribbon core", but do not take my word for that!

As well as I can tell with the views given, the black and white marbles is an Akro "corkscrew".  From the 1930's. 

Below that is a stone marble.  With that pattern it could be called a bullseye agate.   It looks like it may have been someone's favorite shooter.  (It has many hit marks on it -- which add character to a shooter -- but not monetary value, you'll understand.)   Likely from Germany, possibly from the same time period as your other Germans.  

The solid reddish marble also has quite a few hits.  I thought it looked like glass but with it surviving that many hits maybe I'm wrong about that.

The rest of the marbles are called slags .  At least one is what is called "handgathered", where someone dipped the glass out of a pot on a punty and then snipped it off and sent it down the mechanized rollers.   The slags are from the around 1903 to around 1930.  During this time the marble-making process switched from handgathering to a more fully-automated gob-feeding method.  These are made in America.  



 

[wvrons]

With marbles condition is number one. If you study at least 2-3 hours, five days a week. In about ten years you should be able to identify 60% of the marbles you see. 

[Matthew Milburn]

Great googly moogly

[schmoozer]

22 hours ago, wvrons said:

With marbles condition is number one. If you study at least 2-3 hours, five days a week. In about ten years you should be able to identify 60% of the marbles you see. 

Ron,

great description of the hobby, thank you, will be using it in the future.

The other statement I like is “Once you buy it, you can call it whatever you like.”

[wvrons]

Everyone is always looking and trying to buy that one magic marble book. The one that has every marble made pictured identified and valued up to date. If it was available, you could not lift it. It would be many thousand pages. Plus marbles are still surfacing that has never been seen before. We recently dug some at Heaton Agate that no one had seen since they were made. Plus the values would be wrong by the time it got published. Some values almost never change and some change in a year up or down. Everyone ask me to teach them marbles. They have a couple days to spend with me learning, LOL. Maybe I could teach them to identify Davis Marble Works marbles, in two days.  They were in business about a year and made only about 12 different varieties. More difficult when a company was in business from 1931 to 1986 making millions per week, every week. I have collected Alley marbles for 25 years and I am still finding ones that I have not seen before. Plus I collect all marbles, hand made and machine made plus some stone.  Plus anything else the marble companies produced. Like children's dishes, glass animals, gearshift knobs, any Akroware, marble lamps, marble machine parts, any paper work or documents, on and on. Marbles can cover a wide range, over many years, from Roman days until today. The research and study never ends if you want the info. Lots of marble info available today, the most ever in my life. But it will not come looking for you, you have to find it. It takes effort which is time and money.  No single magic marble book. 

[Byerspb]

Lots of great information!  

[I'llhavethat1]

Nice group, the divided core is a 3-layer (3-stages) and looks pretty neat.

Worth noting a 'standard' marble size is approx 5/8" and they don't get much smaller than 1/2".  Largest usually tops out around 2" but there are some vintage handmades that were 2.5"+  and also some modern contemporaries that are much larger

[Matthew Milburn]

The two with the swirls inside, one is busted, are about the circumference of a silver dollar.  I'll get a caliper tonight to help measure.

[I'llhavethat1]

Cool. that would make the Sulphide pretty small then...

[Matthew Milburn]

Picture 1 sulphide, 30.68mm  :: Picture 2 ribbon, 41.16mm :: Picture 3 busted ribbon 40.56mm :: 

Picture 4 b&w 18.14mm :: Picture 5 eye, 19.15mm :: Picture 6 lbrown 16.66mm

picture 7 blue 15.53mm :: picture 8 lbrown 16.68mm :: Picture 9 dbrown 17.47mm :: Picture 10 solid redish 16.43mm

Picture 11 green 24.87mm :: picture 12 brown 25mm